Once A Thief
by Roadrunnerz
Summary: A Robert Scorpio and Anna Devane adventure fic. Anna finds herself in trouble, and caught by a man she long thought dead. A man who no longers remembers her. Takes place shortly after Leora's death on AMC. Other characters include Robin and Mac.
1. Chapter 1

**Once a Thief**

_Paris, France_

_Fall_

She spotted the dead fish out of the corner of her eye.

It floated downstream in the murky waters of the Seine. Its bloated body peaked over the river's rim and her gaze followed it, unblinking, until it vanished from her view and a giggle from the couple seated below shattered her concentration.

'Death' she thought darkly, 'Is when you can't swim against the current anymore. Can't fight the inevitable.'

Death was the ultimate defeat.

She propped her elbows against the cast-iron railing that spanned the riverbank and closed her eyes to shut out the autumn chill.

She started falling. Backwards in time.

Trapped inside an elevator. Plummeting to the ground.

A hand moved to her stomach, and she felt it. The death of an unborn child.

Later, a man died in her arms.

Another man ran towards her, on the deck of a cargo ship, just before the world ended in a blaze of heat.

A baby in her arms, in a cold, sterile hospital room. A beautiful baby girl whose ailing heart finally gave out.

They were all gone. Dead.

Her unnamed child.

Then Duke.

Robert.

And now Leora.

Death had taken them all. And in the process, it had defeated her.

Anna Devane stood on the banks of the Seine and let the tears fall down.

_Medellin, Colombia _

He squinted against the harsh sunlight and wiped a trail of perspiration from his forehead. It barely eleven in the morning and already it was unbearably hot.

"That building," the American told him, pointing to an abandoned warehouse. "That's where we believe they'll meet the collectors."

"I'll set up my men right away," he answered. His English was perfect. Not that this surprised him. His thoughts and dreams were still in English. Yet he used it so rarely it sounded foreign to his ears when he did speak it aloud. In the Beginning one of the doctors had pointed out that he had an Australian accent.

"Good," the American replied. Then he turned to face him. "We really appreciate your co-operation in this."

"Sure," he shrugged, stifling a yawn. It was hot and he was mildly bored.

Cases like these made him miss the drug squad. Being one of the few high-level cops that hadn't't been bought with drug money, once meant he had two bodyguards flanking his every move. It meant he couldn't check his morning e-mail without finding half a dozen death threats. It meant he had, through sheer luck, already survived two of them. It also meant that he had to change his home address every three months.

In short, working Narcotics meant he couldn't lead a normal life.

'That's why I'm here,' he thought, 'Pandering to some self-important American agent tracking down art objects of historical value.' "Trying to stop the plundering of a nation's cultural heritage." That was the exact phrase the American had used.

'If this is normal, I'm not sure I like it,' he thought, unable to stop the yawn this time.

He had worked Narcotics since the Beginning.

The Beginning. That's what he liked to call it.

There were two periods in his life: the Beginning and the Before.

The Beginning was when he left the hospital in Cartagena, with no clue or memory of who he had been coming in. Knowing only that a Colombian fishing trawler had found him, burned and barely conscious, and took him back to their homeland rather than to the shores of Venezuela, not far from where they'd found him.

The Beginning was a chance encounter with a mugger and a street fight that left him with the realization that he knew something about fighting.

The Beginning was about choosing a name and entering the Medellin Police Academy.

It was about rising quickly through the ranks even though Spanish was a language that he mastered with considerably less ease. A language that he knew instinctively wasn't't his own.

There were still days that he desperately wished he could remember something from the Before, although they were fewer now and farther in-between.

There were occasional images that entered his mind when he was asleep. Brief, fleeting images. Of a little dark-haired girl. Of a boat engulfed in fire. But they lasted only long enough to wake him in a cold sweat. And when they did come he was always left with more questions. Were they memories? Were they real or merely dreams?

Years ago he had gone to Australia in the hopes of tracking down a missing police officer. Because someone had told him he had an Australian accent when he spoke English and he assumed his skills in policing implied a previous career in that field.

He had gone there hoping to find himself, and he came back empty-handed. Knowing nothing more about the mystery that was his past than he did before he left.

He had decided then that it was best to leave the Before alone.

Maybe his doctors and colleagues were right. Maybe he had been a target once. Someone had meant to kill him and he had survived by accident. Going back might only help them finish the job.

Maybe not knowing was better. Safer and saner.

The American's eyes rested a moment longer on his face than they should have, and when he realized he was staring he turned his gaze away in embarrassment.

"Sorry," he muttered. "I did't mean to stare."

Roberto Sandoval smiled.

The large burn scar that ran from his ear, along his jaw line and down to his neck was a permanent, visible reminder of the Beginning. For those seeing it for the first time, it was jarring. Especially if they had caught the unscarred side of his face first, oblivious to what the other side hid.

The men on his squad made jokes about it. They told him he'd be strikingly handsome, if only he never turned his head around. For one of his birthdays (he didn't know what date it was, so he had simply picked one on the calendar), they'd given him tickets to a play featuring a scarred, mask-wearing opera singer.

"No worries," Roberto told the American, like he told everyone else. He used to tell his men the scar came from a drug lord's attempt on his life. He told them it was a reminder that he wasn't easily defeated.

That much was true.

"How long will it take you to assemble a team here?" the American asked him, changing the subject.

Roberto gave him a thin-lipped smile. It was a dumb question. "They're ready now."

_Paris, France_

She ran her hands over the cool green stone, looking for imperfections on its surface.

"That's a jaguar mask, a common Mayan motif," a voice behind her explained. "It is genuine Guatemala jade. Among the finest in the world." The voice spoke French with an English accent and when she turned around she saw it belonged to an older man, wearing a chequered cardigan that looked like came straight from Marks and Spencer.

"Guatemala jade is merely prolific. The world's finest is from Myanmar." Anna answered him in English, holding up the mask. Her hair was wet and a drop of rainwater fell onto the jade. "This is neither. It's dyed onyx, I suspect. Mexican jade." Mexican jade was trade lingo for a fake.

The old man blushed, pursing his lips. "I beg your pardon?"

Anna's lips toyed with a smile. She had entered the antiquities shop on a whim. It was dark and hidden, on a lane-way off the Rue de Vaugirard, away from the tourist traffic of Montparnasse. She had stepped inside to seek shelter from the increasing rain. Now she found herself intrigued with both its contents and the shop owner. "I could report you for selling fakes."

His pursed lips tightened. "You're very mistaken, Madame."

Anna now understood why the shop was so dark. She suspected the mask she was holding wasn't the only thing here that wouldn't hold up to the scrutiny of bright light. "The surface is too smooth, the colour too even. A microscope would make the dye job obvious."

The old man's cheeks flushed red. "I will not tolerate such insults to my goods. I shall have to ask you to leave my shop, Madame."

"I was kidding," she told him, setting down the mask. She felt a surge of adrenaline holding the fake mask in her hands. She was secretly pleased that she could still spot its flaws with such ease, flaws that would be missed by an untrained eye. "I'm not going to report you."

The man said nothing.

"Your shop," she explained. "Takes me back in time. I used to deal with objets d'art. I have a soft spot for jade."

The man observed her more closely, and this time it was his face that twisted into a smile.

"Anna?"

The question startled her.

"Anna Devane," he announced with certainty. His eyes twinkled. "No wonder it was the jaguar mask that caught your eye."

Anna gulped. "Do I know you?"

"You did," the old man told her, holding out his hand. "Spencer Gooding."

Anna shook his hand, examining him more closely.

"You may not remember me, but I remember you. Some women are impossible to forget." He gestured her to have a seat on an antique divan but she declined. "Your hair was longer then. But, you've become more beautiful with age." His grip was strong. "What impeccable timing you have, Ms. Devane, because I have something in the back room that you of all people would appreciate. Is it still Devane?"

"No, it's not." Anna lied, shaking her hand off his, unnerved by the combination of his familiarity and her inability to place his face. "And no thank you. I'm not interested…"

"Oh, I think you would be."

"No," she repeated, taking a step back. "I doubt it."

"Please," he said softly. "Come with me."

"No," Anna said firmly. "I no longer…" She paused. "I no longer care for your…business. I haven't for a long time."

"Oh…" the old man's face registered disappointment.

"I work in law enforcement now," Anna added, defensively.

"Dear lord," Spencer Gooding bristled. "What a shame."

"Look," Anna said, heading for the store's exit. "I don't know who you are but I'm no longer who I once was."

"That's too bad," he said softly. "Sometimes, knowing who we are is the only thing that helps us survive."

The words chilled her and Anna left the store hastily, half-running back into the cold, autumn rain.

_Medellin, Colombia _

_One week later_

"It's been a week," Roberto Sandoval told the American. "One week of wasted manpower, observing an empty warehouse."

The American did't meet his irritated stare. "They're going to be there," he insisted. "And Uncle Sam is footing half the bill, so don't complain to me about wasted manpower."

Roberto seethed. Two dozen of the force's best men were sitting around watching a vacant building, while elsewhere drug lords were gunning down anyone who tried put a chink in their armour. Dragging poverty ridden teenagers into their endless cycle of wealth and violence.

He remembered the countless days he'd spent begging the bureaucrats for more money to fight the fight. The triumph he felt each time he got a fraction of what he asked for.

No. Not asked. Demanded. _Insisted_.

It all felt hollow now when he saw those same funds pouring down the drain to impress the two American agencies, here to get back stolen artefacts and missing museum pieces.

"Instead of babysitting your hunches, my men could be doing something useful," Roberto shot back. "Like their jobs."

He took pleasure in the fact that the American couldn't't think of a reply in time.

_Paris, France_

_The next day_

"You came back," the old man pointed out. Today he wore a striped vest and a bow tie. A pair of reading glasses hung around his neck.

"I want you tell me how you knew my name," Anna replied, glancing around to make sure no one else was in the poorly lit store. Antique furniture filled every inch of free space, making it hard to move around without bumping into a grandfather clock, a coffee table or a Victorian settee.

The old man smiled. "You were always exceptionally curious. It was how you stayed on top of the game. You always had to know…"

"Cut to the chase, would you?"

"Oh Anna, have a little patience with an old man, would you? Let him indulge in a memory."

Anna fastened the belt on her trench coat, "If you're going to play games then I don't have time."

"You said you worked with objets d'art, Ms. Devane. More accurately, you were a fence. Or as you liked to call it, "a broker." Me, I was an exporter."

"I worked out of New York City," Anna tested him.

"Yes, you did," the old man agreed. "As did I in 1985. My shop was on East 4th street. Chinese jades were my speciality."

Going back in time, recognition suddenly dawned on Anna. The old man, Spencer Gooding, was right. She _had_ done business with him. More than once. He was younger then. His hair salt and pepper, not pure white. And he had to have been about twenty pounds lighter.

"You remember now," the man pointed out.

"Yes." Anna nodded. " I do."

His smile returned. It was congenial, almost grandfatherly. "I don't believe that's the only reason you came back."

"It is," she said coldly. "And now that you're no longer a mystery, I thank you for your time, Mr. Gooding."

"Anna, Anna…what's your hurry?" he asked, moving a hand on her arm. "There is something here that I would love for you to see."

"Whatever illegal activities you're carrying out here," she said, under her breath. "I suggest for your sake that I don't know about them."

"Illegal," he gasped, giving her an insulted look, "Please don't use that word around here, Ms. Devane. Both of us understand that taking a cultural artifact from its origin is always theft. Regardless of who the new owners are, a museum, a government or a private collector. Theft is theft."

"Exactly, Mr. Gooding. Theft is theft, no matter how you try and justify it."

"Have you heard of Quetzalcoatl, Anna?"

"What?" The question took her aback. "The Mayan god?"

The old man nodded, "Yes. The Mayans called him Kukulcan, god of healing. I prefer to use his Aztec name. It was the Aztecs that gave him his notoriety. They merged him with the feathered serpent god of their mythology. According to them he not only taught us to heal but he gave humans fire and he loathed human sacrifice. Because of his benevolence, some call it a weakness, he lost a fight against Tezcatlipoca, the god of smoking mirrors, and thus defeated, he was banished from Mexico and disappeared into the ocean. Legend says he will return one day and bring with him peace and prosperity."

"Nice story. Sounds familiar."

The old man laughed, "It's not."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Thousands of masks have been made in Quetzalcoatl's honour. None of them flawlessly combine the blue jade of Guatemala with the green jade of Mexico." He paused, watching her. "None except for one."

His glance shifted towards a locked door, "Don't tell me you're not curious, Anna."

"Combining the two jades is extremely rare. You've got your work cut out for you if you're trying to sell a fake."

"Oh, Anna, my dear," The old man's smile was an impish grin now. "I'm not talking about a fake."

Anna smirked, "Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"

Spencer Gooding put on his glasses and moved to lock the store's entrance, ensuring no one else came inside. "I thought you'd never ask."

Anna bit her lip. She had only humoured him because she wanted to call his bluff, she told herself. He was wrong to think it was because she had any sort of genuine interest in his forged and stolen goods.

"Follow me, please," he told her, opening the locked door next to the Edwardian dresser that leaned against the back wall.

The room was filled with more antiques, pressed together as tightly as they were in the showroom outside. The quality of these pieces was higher. Most of them were in mint condition, some covered with a protective layer of plastic.

It was obvious that Spencer Gooding kept his best products hidden for his regular customers, away from the probing hands of the tourists that stumbled through his shop.

An oil painting hung on the wall, and Anna watched as he pushed it aside to reveal a brick wall behind it.

The old man's fingernail pressed into a crack on the wall across from it and Anna watched as a half dozen of the bricks moved aside simultaneously to unveil a safe hidden behind.

Gooding stood in front of the safe and stared at a scanner. Anna heard a brief buzzing noise and the safe's door opened noiselessly.

"Retinal scan?" Anna marvelled. "I'm impressed."

Her shock at his high-tech safe was small compared to her awe when he uncovered the blanketed mask it held inside.

The mask was life size. Its features were so finely carved they appeared real, mimicking every facet of the human face with the accuracy of a camera.

Anna held her breath; afraid to touch it for fear that it would spring to life.

Flawless as its details were, they couldn't compete with the striking colours they were embedded in. The hues of blue and green were so well intertwined it was almost impossible to discern where one jade began and the other ended. The result was an imperceptible fusion of the two colours and the two stones.

"The colours… they're incredible," Anna whispered. "But how is it possible? The technology to blend the two stones without destroying them in the process did't exist two thousand years ago."

Spencer Gooding smiled, pleased at her awe. "It's fantastic, isn't't it?"

Anna looked at him, dumbstruck, "Are you saying this is a fake?" She did't think it was possible. To recreate something as perfectly as this.

"Of course not."

Anna reached out to touch it. Gingerly. Her fingers gliding over the cool, silken stone. "Then…_how_?"

"With unimaginable patience, with craftsmanship, with the help of the gods…who knows?" Gooding raised his shoulders. "Much in the world of art is a mystery. This mask is no exception."

Anna couldn't tear her eyes from it. It was mesmerizing. "I'm afraid to ask where you got it from."

Spencer Gooding laughed and his glasses bobbed from his neck. "Don't worry, Anna. I'm not about to burden your new ethics with that knowledge."

Anna didn't resist a smile. "Do you have a buyer?"

Spencer Gooding nodded. "I do."

"How much?"

It was an inappropriate question. If this mask was what she suspected it was. A two thousand year old cultural masterpiece as perfect and unique as the Mona Lisa, then it really couldn't be given a price tag. Still, her curiosity demanded an answer.

"Seventeen million."

The price tag reflected the illegal nature of the sale. Anna suspected it was a fraction of what it was worth.

She raised her eyebrows. "You can retire after that."

Spencer Gooding chuckled. "Oh no, my dear. I would die if I stopped working."

Anna caressed the mask once more before reluctantly letting him put it back into the safe. "Thank you," she said, meaning it. "Thank you for showing me this. It's incredible." Seeing it disappear back into the safe saddened her, knowing it wouldn't be seen again. Likely not by anyone. Instead it would be mounted behind bulletproof glass inside the home of one absurdly wealthy individual, too selfish to share it with the world.

"How long before the sale?" she asked. She knew she had no right to ask, but at the same time she knew that if the old man didn't trust her he wouldn't have shown her the mask to start.

She also knew that as a former law enforcement officer she had every obligation to find out where the mask came from. To report its presence here.

But she knew she wouldn't. Gooding knew that as well, or else he wouldn't have shown her the mask.

The old man pursed his lips. "I don't have a date."

"You said you had a buyer."

"I do," Gooding answered. "I have a buyer who's prohibited from leaving his home country. A buyer who needs it delivered."

Anna's eyes widened, "That's a huge risk."

"It is," he admitted. "I need someone I can trust implicitly. Someone not only willing but capable of taking the risk."

He paused and then Anna suddenly realized what he was inferring.

She coughed, almost choking at the thought. "You've got to be kidding. I haven't done this in almost two decades."

"You would be perfect."

Anna raised her hand and shook her head at the same time, still struck at the absurdity of the old man's notion that she would go back to working for him. "I couldn't…no, absolutely not."

"You would retain ten percent of the sale."

"I don't need money."

"No one has to _need_ money to accept a simple job that pays over one and a half million."

"This job is anything but simple," Anna corrected him. "Depending on where your courier is going, getting caught could mean a death penalty."

Spencer Gooding sighed and took a seat on one of his Victorian chairs. "I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, Anna. I believe you entered my shop for a reason. Just as I was getting desperate to find someone I could trust to do this job."

"I'm sorry," she said, eyeing him. Oddly enough, she almost meant it. Merely holding the mask and speaking openly of an illegal trade she hadn't thought about in years, had an exhilarating effect on her. There was a flicker in the back of her mind that pondered what it would be like to take on the task.

The challenge.

_The thrill. _

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "But it's not an option for me. Not anymore."

Gooding looked at her sadly. "It's alright, my dear. I understand."

"I have a grown daughter now. She's here, in Paris," she told him. "I couldn't stand it if she were to find out."

"We all have our reasons." He smiled, "I imagine she must be a lovely young woman now. Little Robin. Especially if she takes after her mother."

Anna looked at him, stunned_. "How do you know?"_

"You brought her to my shop once," he explained. "In New York. She was a little girl then. With long dark hair, just like her mother."

"I wouldn't have…" Anna protested. "I wouldn't have brought her to your shop. Or told you she was my daughter."

"It was a late afternoon in November. Cold and wet, much like today," Gooding told her. "You said something about her grandmother being late to pick her up. You did't tell me she was your daughter, that's true. But you didn't have to."

Anna blushed, "You're very good."

He shook his head modestly, "No. I just have an excellent memory. Especially for unforgettable people."

"Robin is the only thing I have left," Anna said softly. "She's my everything. She's become an amazing young woman, who is so much like her father it breaks my heart sometimes, and it would kill me if she found out that I did something like this."

To her surprise, Spencer Gooding moved to hug her. "You don't have to explain, Anna. I understand."

His embrace caught her off guard and for an instant she thought she saw Leora's face flash before her.

She wiped a tear from her eye, "Thank you."

_Paris _

"So what do you do all day anyway?"

Anna took off her shawl and draped it over Robin's messy sofa. It was covered in textbooks and lab notes. "What do you mean?"

Even in her over-sized shawl and trench coat, her mother carried herself with an effortless elegance. It made Robin smile. "I mean, you've been here for three weeks now, aren't you bored of sightseeing yet?"

Anna narrowed her brows, "Bored? It's Paris. I doubt I'll ever run out of things to see."

"Nah. You will," Robin shot back, putting the end of the pen she was holding between her teeth. "You've already gone to the Louvre twice."

Her mother sat down across from her with a grin. "There's more to Paris than the Louvre."

"Like?"

"Like…the Musee d'Orsay, for instance."

Robin raised her eyebrows. "You went to the Musee D'Orsay today?" It was Monday today. The Orsay museum was closed Mondays. Every Parisian knew that.

"The setting is beautiful. A work of art all on its own."

"Really?" Robin bit her tongue, annoyed at the lie. It wasn't the first and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Her mother had spent a fair share of her childhood stretching various truths under the guise of protecting her. Most of the time Robin had seen right through the lies, but even back then she usually didn't have the heart to let her parents in on the fact that they did't always succeed in sheltering her from all of life's hardships.

Finding out that she was HIV positive was ample evidence that the truth could hurt.

Robin bit her lip, 'Had you been around, I wonder how would you have tried to protect from _that_ news, Mom…'

Growing up, her parents' obsessive need to protect her had made her want to kick and scream sometimes, and then, in one unbearable day, she lost them both. After that she would have given an arm and a leg to have their love back in her life. Complete with all its overprotective half-truths.

Robin observed her mother, for an instant both guilty and worried. Worried that maybe the grief that had almost overwhelmed her when she had first arrived in Paris was somehow taking its toll on her again.

"Hey," her mother poured herself a glass of wine. She could still read her like an open book. "Why so serious?"

Robin shrugged, "No reason. Just wondering what you're up to these days."

"Well, I _was_ coming home to invite you out to dinner but…" Anna glanced at her textbook, "I see you're busy learning another language. That is Greek, isn't it?"

Robin smirked, her concern fading at the sound of the lightness in her mother's voice. And the mischievous glint in her eyes. She looked happy.

"Latin."

She felt her mother's arm around her shoulders, "How did I end up with such a brilliant child?"

"They probably gave you the wrong baby."

Her mother laughed, "I bet my real daughter is running a scam at a racetrack somewhere."

"You think we should try and find her?"

"Nah," her mother shook her head, planting an unabashed kiss on her cheek. "I think I'll keep this one."

Robin smiled. A familiar warmth filled her. Her mother had a way of doing that, of making her feel like the most cherished person in the world. Robin knew she would never completely understand the enigma that was her mother, but she never doubted how much she was loved.

She put down her pencil, "Well, in that case, this daughter will take you up on your offer for dinner."

_Medellin, Colombia_

_One week later_

The raid took place ten days after the American arrived.

They did come.

Just as he had promised.

And what a bloody mess it was,' Roberto thought. His thoughts came in English. As they always did.

At first it went surprisingly smooth. One of Escobar's right hand men showed up with four bodyguards in tow to meet three apparent sellers. Roberto's men were about to record the entire transaction when one of the bodyguards caught on. Weapons were drawn and his men stormed the building. A steel canister erupted during the gunfire, causing an explosion that ripped half the warehouse apart.

Roberto flinched at the memory.

He had watched the explosion from afar and as any explosion did, the sight took him back to a night over ten years ago, to the explosion that was the divider between the Before and the Beginning. To the wall of fire that changed everything. Like all explosions, the sight unnerved him and he had to make a physical effort to bring his shaken nerves under control.

When it was all over two of his men were injured. One bodyguard was dead and seven people were arrested.

He should have cared about the smugglers they caught. Or at least, like the American agent, he should have cared about the stash of artefacts and cultural treasures they found.

The truth, after his years on the drug squad, he was only interested in Escobar's right hand man, Jose Morales. Catching him red-handed was a major coup and he would have given an arm and a leg to be part of the interrogation. He had spent years trying to put a chink on Escobar's armour, and now that he had caught Morales, he was told to stay out of it. Told that it was no longer his business. His business were the trinkets they found at the scene.

"_Has visto la mascara? Es increible."_

"I don't give a damn about the mask," he mumbled to Juan Dominguez, his new second in command. Unlike himself, Dominguez was perfectly suited to this department. He was a lover of details who was as passionate about the stolen art they recovered, as Roberto was about justice. Dominguez was a quiet, meticulous man and now his head was buried in the photographic evidence they had taken to document the items they had recovered from the warehouse.

"_No te preoccupes con Morales…"_ Dominguez warned him without looking up, knowing the reason for his foul mood.

Roberto banged his fist on the table, furious. "_I'm_ the one who's been on his tail for years and now that we have him here not on a technicality but on an actual damn charge they're telling me to stay out of it?"

"They're right," Dominguez repeated, nonplussed. "He's not your problem."

"I want to be in that interrogation room, before Escobar either gets him out or has him killed…" Roberto told him. "We both know it won't be long before that happens."

Dominguez threw him a file folder, "_This_ is your case. Forget about Morales."

"I'll tell you what I'll forget…" he hissed, interrupted when one of his junior officers entered the room.

"They need you in the interrogation room," the man told him.

Roberto flashed Dominguez an 'I-told-you-so' look. "I knew they wouldn't leave me out of this."

"Not for Morales," the officer told him, lowering his voice. "Juan-Carlos's wife went into labour. He can't make it. They need an interpreter."

"What?" Roberto narrowed his brows.

"For the woman, the one who had the mask…she doesn't speak Spanish."

Roberto angrily threw his hands in the air. "You want me to head down to the prison to be an interpreter for a mule?" He glared at both men, "It's been two damn days since the raid! I thought you were only giving this one a few hours before she cracked?"

"Sir, the order came from the top. They need you there."

Roberto grabbed his badge and ID card from the desk. "When I get back, I'll let you know how it went with Morales."

Dominguez rolled his eyes. "Yes, please. We're dying to know."

_La Catedral, Maximum Security Prison, Medellin_

Roberto Sandoval flinched when the steel doors clanged shut behind him.

It was the third and last set he had to go through before entering one of the main interrogation rooms.

A permanent smell of urine and sweat permeated the air, making him nauseous. It was damp and humid in the stone hallways, and coupled with the poor lighting and the nearby din of human voices, the whole god-forsaken building made him want to crawl out of his skin.

Every time he came here he was reminded why he went to great lengths to avoid setting foot in La Catedral.

An officer outside the interrogation room demanded his ID and frisked him, before running a swipe card through it, allowing him to enter.

Once inside the lighting improved and he recognized the three plain-clothes officers who sat at a long table in the room.

Roberto held out his hand to the third man, who was staring at his scar. "Sandoval."

"Riviera."

Roberto guessed it was Hector Riviera even if he did't recognize the man's face. He worked out of Bogota, tracking international smuggling rings, and had been expected yesterday to help him on this case.

The other two officers were part of his detail and he half expected them to be here, to take part in the interrogation, Sgt. Valencia Munoz and Det. Luis Rigato doing the leg work for him. The sat at opposite ends of the table, which didn't surprise him. They were usually at each other's throats.

"Where's the suspect?" Roberto asked. "I usually need one for an interrogation."

"She did't have a good night here," Munoz answered him. "The medics are fixing her up for us."

"Excuse me?" Roberto bristled and the hair on his skin stood on end. He had no pity for anyone choosing a life of crime, but he hated senseless violence and brutality as much as he hated its victims being deprived of justice. "Don't tell me you put her a communal cell?"

None of them answered, and Roberto's anger rose at the base of his throat.

"Which one of you decided to put her in a communal cell?" He stared at each of them. "Answer me, damn it!"

Luis Rigato, the oldest man at the table met his stare. He was a trigger happy chauvinist who was long overdue for retirement. "She wasn't't co-operating. We thought it would be a good idea to give her a real taste of La Catedral, to convince her that she wouldn't want to…"

"That woman is one of my prime arrests in this case. Don't _ever _do anything like that again, without consulting me," Roberto threatened.

"I thought that…" Rigato tried.

"You _didn't_ think," Roberto corrected him. "They beat her to a pulp, didn't they? If she's lucky, that's all they did. And if they had killed her, I swear, I would've made sure you followed her straight to hell."

_Had_ she been killed last night, she wouldn't have been the first inmate at La Catedral who did't leave alive. Inmates died, and killed themselves at La Catedral with stunning frequency.

The thought of almost having lost one of his arrests to a senseless prison brawl made him furious.

With disgust Roberto watched the man's face burn with anger. Having embarrassed him in front of his peers, even worse, in front of a female officer, was unforgivable, and he knew that from now on Rigato would do what he could to work against him.

Roberto Sandoval didn't care. He didn't care about making friends and he had no tolerance for petty malice. Nor for stupidity.

He vaguely remembered the woman they had arrested during the raid. She had worn a designer suit that afternoon. She had been well dressed and confident. Slim and petite, with a pale complexion. Attractive even.

Criminal inclinations aside, everything about her suggested that she wasn't used to getting her fingers dirty.

Most of the female inmates of La Catedral were as vicious and hardened as their male counterparts. Throwing a woman like the one he had arrested into one of their shared cells would be like throwing a hunk of meat into a tank full of hungry sharks.

"The other inmates did attack her, but it appears that she's tougher than she looks. She fought back and injured two of her attackers. One of them is still unconscious."

"That means we can add on additional charges of assault and unruly behaviour," Rigato pointed out

"Right," Roberto stopped short of rolling his eyes. "An assault charge for defending her own ass. Makes sense to me. Exactly the kind of triviality we rely on now, to make up for our investigative shortcomings."

He stood across from the table they sat on, separating him from the rest of them, both in stature and physical distance. It was a fitting image of the authority he had over them. "I'd like you to leave the room while interrogate the prisoner."

"I'm here on a transfer from Bogota specifically to assist you on this case, I have a right to be here," Hector Riviera protested.

"I don't care if you flew in from Russia," Roberto replied impatiently. "As the officer in charge I have a right to interrogate my suspect without an audience."

Valencia Munoz was the first to stand up, and she gave him a nod, before looking at the other men_. "Vamonos."_

Roberto returned the gesture with a nod of his own, marvelling how she put up with the rampant _machismo_ in the force.

He waited, taking a few minutes to refocus and to turn on his recorder before calling for the woman to be brought in.

If the questioning was done in English it would have to be translated back into Spanish by the same interpreter who should have been here in his place.

Interrogating a woman, no matter how often he did it, always made him uneasy.

He flinched when the steel doors opened and the handcuffed prisoner was led inside.

His frown deepened when he saw her face. One of her eyes was closed shut, nestled amidst a deep, purple coloured mess of flesh. Hastily done stitches ran down her temple, alongside her black eye. Her long, dark brown hair was matted with blood on one side of her face.

Shame washed over him.

Regardless of the crime she had committed, her injuries were a direct result of his professional neglect. Had he stayed informed of his own case instead of fretting over Morales, he would have been aware of Rigato's reckless decision to throw her into a communal cell, and he would have been able to reverse that malicious move before it happened.

If she had been un-cooperative before, Roberto doubted that last's events night would help.

"I'm sorry," he told her in English, meaning it.

Her handcuffed hands held on to the back of one of the chairs in the room. Her back was perfectly straight and her uninjured eye stared at him levelly, giving her an air of dignity that he didn't expect.

Small, slender and with a face that was an obvious painful mess, she was still facing him as an equal and it unsettled him. So did the knowledge that she had fought back and injured two of her assailants.

Roberto's forays into La Catedral had taught him that you could strip a person of virtually everything. Health, looks, wealth and strength were four tangible traits that defined most inmates, and they could be taken with surprising ease whenever they wanted to weaken their resilience.

Yet there were other inherent, intangible possessions, like this woman's pride, that were harder, almost impossible, to wrench from someone.

And when that was the case, as it was with this woman, they were labelled "difficult."

He met her glance and when he did, he saw something other than defiance in her eyes.

Shock.

Because of his scar, he was used to stares. Whispers and lingering glances even. But her bewilderment was excessive.

She looked at him as though she had seen a ghost.

"Who…are…you?" she whispered, suddenly pale.

For no reason, her voice sent a chill up his spine.

"I'm Roberto Sandoval," he answered mechanically, disturbed by the physical effect she had on him. "I'm the Assistant Commissioner of the Medellin Police and the officer in charge of the raid during which you were arrested and charged for possession of stolen goods."

A hand moved to her mouth, and now he could barely hear her.

"_Robert? Is it really you?"_

He looked at her and then he saw it again. The inferno on the boat. The explosion that engulfed everything.

He had seen the image before. Countless times. But this time it was different.

This time he heard a voice calling out to him.

_"Robert! No!"_

_Her_ voice.

Her grip on the chair tightened, turning her hands chalk white and when she tried to walk towards him, she swayed.

He caught her just before she fell.

And instantly he knew.

That he had held her in his arms before.


	2. Chapter 2

_La Catedral Prison, Medellin, Colombia_

Roberto Sandoval stayed with her during the doctor's examination.

They were in a private cell now. Poorly lit and claustrophobically small, it nonetheless had to be a welcome refuge for the woman, after the chaos of La Catedral's shared cells.

"I'm fine," he heard her protest. "Don't touch me!"

Judging from her unease around him, Roberto had no doubt that the physician hadn't been as gentle with her the first time around.

"Why did she faint?" Roberto asked him.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders indifferently_. "No se."_ He man turned to Roberto with glassy eyes, mumbling something about a concussion.

"_Digale que no se mueva,"_ he ordered.

"Fine_." _Roberto replied, escorting the doctor out of the cell.

When he was gone, Roberto turned his attention back to the woman.

She was lying down now, her hands still handcuffed.

"The doctor says you should lie still for a while. You have a concussion."

"That's what happens when you use someone's head as a battering ram."

"Look…I said I'm sorry. What happened to you last night shouldn't have happened."

"Thanks. That makes me feel much better."

Roberto bit his tongue, refraining from a reply. She was no longer as deathly white as she had been in the interrogation room, but she was still a sickly pale and her verbal bravado didn't hide her fear.

"You really don't remember me, do you?" she asked softly, the anger gone from her voice, replaced by astonished disbelief.

"Do you know me?" he asked. God, if only she knew how much he wanted her to answer yes to that question. If she did, if she wasn't lying, and she really _did_ know him, then he had found his first and only link to the Before.

"You could say that," she answered.

"How?"

He hoped she didn't sense the eagerness in his voice. If she knew how much the answer meant to him, how desperate he was for it, she could use it as leverage. A bargaining tool for someone who didn't have much to bargain with.

She didn't answer.

"You were there, weren't you?" he prodded. "On the boat that exploded."

"The tanker," she said softly. "Yes. I was there." She stared at him, "You really don't remember, do you?"

Telling her that he had no memory of anything prior to the explosion meant she could easily concoct a relationship that never existed.

"Do you feel anything when you look at me? When you hear my voice? _Anything_? Do you, Robert?"

He _did_ feel something, but he couldn't put into words exactly what.

"What were you doing on the boat that exploded?" he pressed.

She groaned as she sat up, unwilling to answer him lying down, and he felt a sudden urge to tell her to take it easy.

Why? Why did he give a damn whether she was in pain or not? 

"Why don't you ask yourself what _you_ were doing on that boat?" she answered.

"_I'm_ the one doing the asking," he shot back. Her questions made him uncomfortable. "Is a simple question too much for you to answer?"

"I can answer it for you," she said, not baited by his defensiveness. "You were there because of me."

Roberto wanted to pace. Frustrated that the cell was too small for it, he made an effort to stand still. He towered over her. "Go on."

"You came to get me."

The words brought a wave of relief over him. She was a criminal. That's all it was. He had come close to capturing her once before. So that was how he knew her.

"I was your wife."

The words hit him like a brick wall. One that drained the blood from his head, weakened his knees, and made him want to sit down.

"You're lying," he managed. She _was_ lying. It was the only explanation.

If this woman had truly been his wife, then he would _know_.

It wasn't possible that he wouldn't.

_He would remember his own wife. _

"Maybe…" she whispered, getting up, her voice choking. "Maybe if you undid these damn handcuffs and let me touch you. Maybe then…I could trigger something in your memory…please, Robert…let me touch you."

He stumbled backwards, away from the bed. Away from her.

It was too much.

"You're a liar!" he yelled. She had hold on him so strong he could start to feel it overwhelm him, rendering him weak and helpless. He despised her for it. "You're nothing but a thief who's found an opportunity in a bad situation, and you think you can play me like a fool. But you're sadly mistaken."

She stood up. "You feel _something_ don't you?"

Roberto took another step back, shaken. "Don't come any closer!"

She didn't.

He saw that she was crying now.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Robert. I could never do that."

Unable to stand it anymore, he turned his back to her, opening the cell door as fast as his hands allowed, slamming it shut behind him.


	3. Chapter 3

**III **

_Medellin, Colombia_

"_I was your wife." _

'You're a liar,' he told the voice in his head. _Her voice._

Roberto Sandoval was at home now, in his gated bungalow in the city's wealthy _El Poblado_ neighbourhood. He had driven his black, armoured Mercedes here too fast tonight.

And when he first got home he didn't stay there for more than a few minutes, before going out for a five mile run.

Now, still in his sweaty t-shirt, he was back and he sat down on his well-worn couch and sunk his fork into a paper container of food, fresh from the microwave.

He barely looked at the label, not wanting to know what he ate. Roberto frowned. It tasted too salty and he couldn't bring himself to eat more than a few bites, before tossing it aside for the remote control.

"_I was your wife." _

He switched the channels mindlessly, too fast to absorb what was on.

"_I was your wife."_

'Shut up.'

He turned off the TV and got up to feed the lone fish that swam in the fishbowl next to it, hoping the distraction might block out her voice.

"_I was your wife." _

'No, you weren't,' he answered, breathing heavily.

He sat back in silence, staring at the blank screen of the TV.

There was no point, he decided.

No point in trying to get her voice out of his head. It would stay there until he had the facts that confirmed she was lying.

Roberto went to shower, knowing he would head back to the police station tonight.

_La Catedral Prison, Medellin_

Anna Devane dug her nails into the palm of her hand, hoping it would wake her from the nightmare.

It had to be a dream.

It simply wasn't possible that this was real.

It began with the visit to Spencer Gooding's shop in Paris. Then there was the incomparable blue-green jade mask. Followed by her impulsive, irrational decision to help him take it to its buyer.

Even more unbelievable was the violent police raid in Medellin and the shocking explosion that followed.

Then there were brutal women who had tried to kill her last night. And nearly succeeded.

Lastly, most impossible of all: Robert.

The man she had loved like no other. He was here with her, in this nightmare, and worst of all, he looked at her like a stranger.

None of it could possibly be real.

Anna's nails dug deeper into her palms, and when she looked down at them she saw a trickle of blood, from where their tips had pushed through the skin. The stinging pain competed with the pounding in her skull.

And in spite of it all, she still couldn't wake up.

She was still lying in the dark, airless cell Robert had taken her to.

Anna lifted her handcuffed, bloodstained hands to her face and wept.

_Central Police Headquarters, Medellin_

It was already dark outside by the time Roberto Sandoval sat back down in front of the computer on his desk.

The scent of fresh ground Colombian coffee beans wafted from a cup next to his keyboard. He picked it up with one hand while using the computer keys to access the prison database he wanted with another.

Once inside the database he set down the cup and brought up her file.

Unlike the lengthy files he was accustomed to, hers was as short as any he had ever seen.

There was no record of previous criminal activity.

Nothing short of a physical description and a note of the arrest they made at the warehouse. That was it. One charge of possession of stolen goods and smuggling said goods into Colombia.

Nothing else.

Roberto stared at the name on the file.

_Filomena Soltini._

It was a distinctly Italian name, yet the woman had insisted she spoke only English.

'More lies most likely,' Roberto deducted.

He closed his eyes mouthing the name with his lips.

_Filomena Soltini._

'What would I have called you, when I held you in my arms?' 

"Stop it," he scolded himself. "Stop entertaining the notion that she could have been your wife."

Yet if it was a lie, then _why_? Why lie about being married to him?

'Because she caught on fast that I have no memory of the past,' he realized, answering his own question. That she was clever was obvious. 'She knows that if she can convince me that she holds a clue to my past, she can use it to hold me in the palm of her hand.'

"Filomena," he repeated the name aloud.

It held no meaning for him. He couldn't think of single term of endearment he would have used to shorten it. Yet even, so there was something about the name that didn't sound entirely foreign. It sounded oddly… _familiar_.

"Damn you," he cursed the computer screen. Roberto had ordered his men to run her prints through a global criminal record database and, as her file now stated, the search came up with absolutely nothing.

"I'm supposed to believe that someone who's carrying around a multi-million dollar stolen artefact doesn't have a single arrest under their belt?" Roberto snorted. "A first time offender? I don't think so."

If his men hadn't found anything, it was because they weren't looking hard enough, he decided. He would have to look harder.

He switched gears and began a broader search, one that included local police records all over the globe. Records weren't necessarily linked to a global database, such as the ones shared by Interpol and the FBI.

It was a tedious search but it kept Roberto glued to the terminal in front of him.

His first distraction came many hours later, when sunlight filtered through the blinds in his offic. The rays hit his tired eyes with a brightness he didn't appreciate.

Valencia Munoz entered his office only seconds after the sunlight, shocked to see him there.

_"Roberto? Que haces aqui?"_

"I'm working," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes. One lost night later, he was no closer to finding out anything about this woman than he was than when he first sat down.

He did find a Filomena Soltini in Naples, who had two charges to her name, one for involvement in a money laundering scheme and another for fraud. One phone call to Naples police told him that Filomena Soltini was currently serving time in that city. And that she was 57 years old.

He had also found a Filomena-Maria Soltano, arrested in Rome for involvement in a jewellery heist. She subsequently escaped from that city's Rebbibia prison with the help of a fellow inmate. Roberto had gotten his hopes up that he was on the right track, until a quick glance into that woman's file revealed a photo. She was black, born to an Italian mother and an Ethiopian father.

After that; nothing.

For all he knew, the Filomena Soltini he had spoken to yesterday, the one who was imprisoned at La Catedral and claimed to have been his wife; didn't officially exist.

Or more likely, the name was yet another lie. The woman had no ID on her when they arrested her during the raid. Nor did airport records show a Filomena Soltini travelling to Colombia in the last few weeks.

"You shouldn't do this early morning thing," Detective Munoz pointed out while sipping on a cup of café con leche. "You look like hell, boss."

Roberto stretched his hands with a yawn. "Thanks." The surface of his eyes felt like sandpaper. He glanced at his watch. 6:43 am. He had a departmental meeting to chair at 10 o'clock.

"Go home and get a shave before the meeting," Munoz told him, reading his mind.

Sometimes he appreciated her bluntness; other days it was a small step away from insubordination. If he didn't like her as much as he did, he would have told her as much. It didn't help that most of the time she was right.

He stood up, gave her a smile and grabbed his jacket. "Thanks, Mom."

_La Catedral Prison, Medellin_

'It's not a dream,' Anna realized bitterly when she woke up only to find herself still handcuffed. Still lying in the same dark cell she'd been in before she fell asleep.

She felt the tears welling up in her eyes again.

'Stop it,' she scolded herself. 'Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start thinking of a way to get out of here.'

If everything was real then Robert was real as well.

How in the world he had survived the explosion and ended up as assistant police commissioner of the Medellin was more than her pounding head wanted to figure out right now.

'Make sense of the facts that you_ do _know,' she told herself.

'He doesn't remember the past,' she thought, pushing herself up to lean against the wall. 'But he wants to.' The desperation in his eyes was hard to miss, even if she hadn't known him as well as she did.

She wanted nothing more than to take him into her arms. To tell him how deeply she had missed him.

Anna shuddered when she thought of those familiar blue eyes, looking at her without a hint of recognition.

'He _wants_ to remember,' she repeated. 'And god knows you have no idea how much I want you to.' She thought of Robin in Paris and managed a smile. 'Sweetheart, if you only knew…I did something unbelievably stupid and unforgivable, but amidst it all, I found your father.'

Robin was the reason she had used the first fake name that had come to her mind, knowing that she would do whatever it took to make sure Robin couldn't find her here. Not like this.

'But now everything's changed. You have a right to know that your father is alive,' she thought.

If she told Robert her real name he would find out the truth, and he would discover his past in the process.

But the truth would lead to Robin. And that would bring her here. To Medellin.

Anna bit her lip.

She would die rather than have Robin see her like this. Jailed as a thief and a smuggler.

She closed her eyes, trying to think.

There _had_ to be another way.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV **

_Sandoval Residence, Medellin_

Roberto made the mistake of sitting down on the sofa, unaware of just how deeply exhaustion had seeped into his bones.

He was asleep in seconds.

At first it was awelcome, peaceful, slumber, but then it changed. Suddenly he was back in the past. On the boat. Right at the cusp between the Before and the Beginning.

As he did in every dream, he tried to go further back. Into the Before.

He stood on the deck, wanting to escape the rising flames andunbearable heat. He wanted to flee and he wanted to stay, all at once. If he fled he'd wake up. If he stayed he'd burn alive. Everything would go dark. It always, inevitably, did.

_He stood on the tanker, staring at the flames. His feet were glued to the deck, heavy as lead, unable to move._

He knew it would be mere seconds now before the flames would surround him, and the heat was no longer tolerable. Mere seconds before the blackness descended again.

_Except this time something was different. _

_This time he saw her. _

_Standing on the deck with him. _

_She stared right at him from the other side of the boat. Her hair was long and dark and windswept by the flames. _

_She was strikingly beautiful. _

_She called out to him, her face a contorted mask of terror. _

"_Robert! No! Don't come any closer!" _

"_Anna!" _

"Anna!"

Roberto woke with a gasp. He nearly fell off the sofa.

"Anna…" he repeated the name, his hand shaking when he ran it through his hair. Drops of perspiration ran down his neck.

"Anna."

Her name wasn't Filomena.

It was Anna.

His cell phone rang and it made him jump. He saw it lying on the floor.

Roberto reached down to pick it up, his hand still trembling. It was Detective Munoz. "Where the hell are you, boss?"

He glanced at the clock on his VCR.

Damn. The meeting.

He straightened his wrinkled jacket, forgetting about the stubble he had come home to shave. "I'll be there in fifteen."

_Later_

The department head meeting was a mess.

During his days heading Narcotics, Roberto would have gone over the topics of discussion the night before. He would have been prepared, ready to defend his team. His tacticshadincreased funding,manpower and improved equipment. Much to the amazement of his officers, he had taken a chronically under funded department, riddled with corruption, and turned it into the pride of the Medellin police. Chiefs of Police from all over the continent now came here and used the Medellin Narcotics Division as a visionary model in the war against drug trafficking.

During this morning's meeting, Roberto Sandoval barely spoke two words. He had arrived late and was the first to leave.

His next in command, Juan Dominguez, was, understandably, upset.

"If it's not drugs, you don't give a damn?" he hissed under his breath, as soon as they left the room. "We just pulled off the biggestraid in this department's history and you don't think it's an opportunity to get us that lab we've been begging for, for the last five years?"

"I'll talk to Borges about it tonight," Roberto mumbled, guiltily. "He knows we need it."

"He doesn't give a damn that we need it!" Dominguez shouted back, now that they were in the hallway, away from the meeting room. Roberto had never seen the calm, methodical man as angry as he was today. "But I thought maybe _you_ did."

"Look, I'll get it for us," Roberto told him, not bothering to slow down his pace so thatDominguez could keep up.

"I used to watch you and listen to you at these meetings and think that your men were the luckiest guys on the force, because they had a boss who actually gave a damn," Dominguez told, breathing heavily to keep up. "What happened to that man?"

'Low blow,' Roberto thought, running his hand along his stubble. His shirt was still wrinkled and he looked like he had slept in his clothes.

As much as Dominguez's accusations riled him, they weren't entirely unfair.

Even if it wasn't for the woman that had consumed his every waking thought in the last twenty-four hours, Roberto had a hard time bringing himself to care about his job these days.

The job that was supposed to have been a thank you from his superiors now felt more like a curse.

Sure, he enjoyed the lack of daily death threats. What he didn't enjoy was the lack of motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

Or the realization that his risk filled job had been the only meaningful thing in his life and now that it was gone, he didn't have anything else to take its place.

Roberto pushed the button on the elevator, hoping the doors would close before anyone else besides Dominguezhad the chance to enter. Thankfully they did.

Juan Dominguez wiped a trail of sweat from his forehead, staring at the panel of buttons in front of him.

"Look, I screwed up this morning, okay?" Roberto told him. "But I'll make up for it."

Dominguez turned to him, his pent up anger dissipating. "At least you admit it."

"I have some business at La Catedral to take care first. I will see you back at the office."

"Alright, boss." Dominguez replied, not bothering to walk down the corridor with him after he stepped off the elevator. Roberto Sandoval's fast walking pace was legendary in Medellin.

Besides the accent and the scar and the lack of a past, it was one more thing that set him apart from everyone else.

_La Catedral Prison, Medellin_

By the time Roberto Sandoval reached her cell, the familiar odour of human sweat mixed with urine and mildew had made its way into his nostrils again, making him slightly nauseous.

She was sitting up on the bed when he entered her cell, resting her back against the wall her knees pulled up.

"I thought I told you not to move around," he said to her.

"It's hard to get comfortable when everything hurts."

Roberto rested his gaze on her, deciding she might be telling the truth for a change. Her face was a mess, and if it felt half as bad as it looked, it had to hurt. The one eye that had been closed shut earlier was open now, and it looked at him with accusation.

Guilt gnawed at him, yet he feigned indifference. "You haven't asked how the two women you injured are doing." He paused. "One of them is still in a coma." It was a lie to gauge her reaction.

She raised her chin. Defiant. "Maybe I don't care."

"Of course you don't."

The defiance merged with anger now. "_Should_ I care about two women who would have killed me if I hadn't been able to defend myself?"

"You should care because if Carla Ramon dies you're going to have a charge of manslaughter added to your list."

She leaned her head against the wall. Tired. "And? That would please you?"

Roberto shrugged his shoulders. "It doesn't make a difference to me. We have enough evidence to convict you without it."

"Did you get a law degree in the last ten years too, Robert?"

"Don't call me that."

"It's your name."

Roberto bristled. Every one of her words was a provocation against his indifference.

"Why did you come back here?" she asked him.

"You said you were my wife."

"So what? You didn't believe me."

Roberto Sandoval noticed her clenched fists. He sat down next to her, reaching for her hands. She made no effort to pull away from him.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He answered by pulling out a key to unlock her handcuffs, removing them from her wrists and slipping them into the pocket of his jacket.

His other hand rested on her wrist, longer than he intended. Gently, he used both of his hands to uncurl the fingers of one of hers, revealing a bloodstained palm. "Did you do this to yourself?"

She didn't answer.

"It's not clean in here," he told her. "If we don't bandage it, it could become infected."

She pulled her hand away, a mixture of shame and anger rising in her eyes again. Her raw emotions captivated him.Her dark, expressiveeyes couldn't hide much of anything. "I don't want that doctor near me again."

"Have it your way," he conceded.

"You didn't answer my question," she repeated. "Why did you come back here?"

"I told you."

"You came back because you believe me now?"

"I believe that you're a liar."

"I've told you the truth! You were married to me. You _loved_ me!"

"No, no you didn't," he corrected her. "You did _not_ tell me the truth."

A puzzled glare met his accusation. "I did tell you…"

He didn't let her finish. "When we arrested you, you had no ID on you. Fingerprint analysis told us you don't have a criminal record. What it tells me is that you've never been caught." He paused. "All I know is that you gave us a phoney name. The name of a person who doesn't exist."

Her pale cheeks flushed a defensive red. "She does…_did_…exist."

"I already _know_ your real name," he challenged her. "Why don't you prove to me how honest you are by telling me what it is?"

"I see," her cheeks turned a deeper red. "If you already know everything, then you don't need me to tell you anything, do you?"

"I'd like to hear it from you."

"I gave you my name."

He tightened his lips. Frustrated. "You gave me an alias."

"You want me to tell you, Robert. So that you can do your digging into your past without having to hear it from me."

Even if she was lying about her connection to him, she did have an uncanny ability to figure him out. 'She's clever,' he reminded himself. 'That's all. She doesn't have to know me to put two and two together.'

'There has to be a reason you don't want to tell me who you are,' Roberto decided. 'Why try and convince me that we married without telling me your real name? If you're half as smart as I think you are, then you have to know I can verify everything you tell me within minutes.'

He met her stare. '_Why_ are you lying?' he wanted to ask. 'Who are you trying to protect? Yourself? Or someone else?'

_Were we really married? And if we were, did we divorce_?

_Are **you** the reason I was in an explosion that took away everything but my life?_

Roberto cringed. Why did he entertain possibilities that were so far fetched they were an insult to logical thinking?

"What if I tell you the truth, and then you still don't remember enough to give a damn about what happens to me next?" she challenged him."_You_ have everything to gain, and _I_ have everything to lose."

"If you can't even be honest about your name, then how am I supposed to believe anything that comes out of your mouth?"

He asked the question softly. It was a valid question.

Silence hung in the damp air. A long, uncomfortable silence.

"Fine," she relented, her voice as low as his. She still leaned against the wall, closing her eyes. "I'll tell you my name."

She was still pale enough to make her skin look translucent next to her dark brown hair. The blood-stained stitches that ran along the side of her face did so with a dramatic swoop, as though painted there; as a macabre match for his scar.

He too, closed his eyes, afraid of the answer.

'Please,' he thought. 'Tell me my dream was wrong. Give me any name. Any name but Anna.'

"Anna," she said softly. "My name is not Filomena. It's Anna."


	5. Chapter 5

**V**

_Paris, France_

"I'm scared, Mac."

Robin's voice was unsteady when it reached the cordless phone she was holding. "It's been four days since I've seen her. Her cell phone's out of service and she's not returning my messages.Mom wouldn't let me worry like this, unless there was something really wrong."

Her uncle's voice by contrast, was calm. Reassuring. He told her he was going to contact the Paris police personally, as well as Interpol.

"Did you call all local hospitals?"

"Of course," Robin answered. "Even ones outside of Paris. Just in case."

Just because she was worried out of her mind, didn't mean she couldn't think clearly enough to act rationally, exactly how her parents had taught her. 

"Sweetheart, will you do me a favour?"

"What?" Robin asked, verging on annoyed.

"Take a deep breath for me. Remind yourself that your mother is very capable of taking care of herself."

'All of you always forget that Mom's human,' Robin wanted to answer. 'She lost a child only a few months ago.'

"Robin…?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

"I have to ask you some questions, okay?"

"Yeah."

"Was there anything different about her when you saw her the last time?"

"She was fine, Mac!" Robin answered, exasperated. "Don't you think I'd have told you if I thought there was something odd? In fact, she seemed really happy for the first time in a long time. There was this…I don't know how to explain it, but there was this look in her eyes, like she was looking forward to something."

"Did she mention anything?"

Robin bit her nails. "No, nothing specific. We just… we had dinner together, one of those touristy Greek places in the Left Bank. I thought she'd like something fun and lively. We chatted about everyday stuff. How she was getting to know Paris again. About school. She was bugging me whether I was seeing anyone. The usual."

"When you say she seemed happy for the first time, what do you mean? How was she before?"

It was a dumb question. But Robin knew that her uncle was doing exactly what he had to. Interrogating her as though this was what it now felt like: a police investigation.

"She left Pine Valley because my sister died, Mac. Leora died and then Mom couldn't work things out with David. It's an understatement to say she was a mess when she first came to Paris."

"Tell me."

"She didn't sleep, she didn't eat. I'd catch her crying when she thought I wasn't looking. I was worried that maybe losing my sister was something she wouldn't recover from."

"But then things changed?"

"They changed slowly," Robin corrected him. "I made her go out. Even if it was just to the grocery store or a restaurant for dinner. She moved into a furnished apartment a few blocks from mine. She started going to museums. Walks in the park. Antique shops. She started jogging again."

'Sometimes,' Robin thought, thinking back. 'I'd even see her smile.'

"Do you think there was someone who caused the change in her?"

"Yeah. _Me_."

"Robin…" This time the exasperation came from the other end.

"There was no one else, Mac. Mom's been pretty reclusive since coming to Paris. She hasn't mentioned making any acquaintances."

"It doesn't necessarily have to be a friend, but anyone she may have come into contact with. It could be a newspaper or a food vendor, a mailman, someone she met while jogging in the park…I want you to think really hard if she ever mentioned _anyone_."

Robin paused, trying to jog her memory. "There's no one I can think of."

"I need to know if anyone could have been in contact with her before she disappeared. If anyone comes to mind, I want you to let me know right away."

"I will."

"Have you called David?"

Robin pursed her lips, balking at the question. "No. I don't see why. He hasn't called her once since she arrived in Paris."

"Anna might have spoken to him. She might have told him something she didn't tell you."

"Then _you_ call him."

"I will. And Robin…"

"What?"

"Do you want me to come to Paris?"

Yes. She did. She desperately wanted someone here to tell her things would be alright. Someone who would convince her that she wouldn't lose her mother after she had only just found her again.

"No," she paused. "It's okay. I'll be alright. You have Georgie and Maxie to look after."

"You're just as much my daughter, Robin. You know that."

The words meant more to her than she'd admit. "It's okay, Mac. Just promise me you'll do whatever you can to help me find Mom."

"I promise, sweetheart. If I get no news in the next 48 hours, I'm going to catch the next flight over. I'm also going to arrange for a guard to keep an eye on you."

Robin shook her head in disbelief, visions of her childhood entering her thoughts. Danger had always come from one direction or another. Her first high school date took place in the presence of a police escort.

"Okay, sweetheart?"

"Yeah, that's fine." It would be pointless to protest. If Mac thought her mother could be in danger, his first instinct would be to protect her. Robin couldn't blame him for that either.

He did love her as much as if she were his own daughter. Just as she loved him.

It wasn't his fault that, no matter what, he still wasn't her father.

After she hung up the phone, Robin let out the tears she'd been holding back.

"I wish you were here, Dad," she mumbled, with a sob. For as long as she could remember, her father had kept her mother safe. No matter what danger she was in, her father had always brought her back home.

The one time he couldn't bring her mother back, he had died trying.

_La Catedral Prison, Medellin, Colombia_

"_My name is not Filomena. It's Anna." _

The words hung in the air. Suspended.

Roberto hoped that maybe he had imagined hearingthem.

"Anna…what?" he pressed, getting his nerves under control

"Just Anna," she replied, knowing he desperately wanted more.

"Why?" he demanded. "Why won't you tell me more?"

Her dark eyes narrowed. "_Why?_ You're asking me why I won't give you everything you want?"

"Yes, why?"

"You want to know your past and I want to get out of here. Why should I give you what you want, if you haven't even asked me what _I_ want in return?"

Roberto Sandoval felt his hair stand on end. She had the nerve to blackmail him. Thinking that he would help her get out of prison in exchange for information on his past.

If he wasn't as shaken as he was he would have laughed.

"You think you can blackmail me?"

"I think we could help each other."

Roberto straightened his spine. "Let me get this straight…you're a liar, and a blackmailer. A smuggler, and most likely a thief, and you think because you remember more about me than I do about you, I'm going to be your future partner in crime?"

"And wife," she spat out bitterly. "I was also your _wife_. You left that out in yourlist."

"So you say."

There was no point hiding his lack of a memory anymore. Anna obviously knew how desperate he was to know about his past and she wouldn't hesitate to use it as a bargaining tool.

Roberto seethed."If you know me half as well as you say you do, you would know that I'd never stand forblackmail."

It was the truth. He hadn't spent ten years cultivating a reputation as a staunchly incorruptible officer so that he could give in to blackmail now.

"I know you're a man of honour," she answered, looking straight into his eyes again. "God knows I've known that for as long as I've known you. But I also know that when you really want something you'll go to any lengths to get it. And you desperately want your past back, I can see that just by the way you look at me."

Roberto tightened his lips. She had a most irritating way of reading his thoughts.

She was still on the cell's only cot, so he kneeled down to meet her at eye level.

"Let me know when you're ready to play by the books, Anna. Then I might help you get your charges reduced. Until then, I have nothing elseto say to you."


	6. Chapter 6

**VI**

_Medellin, Colombia_

_Two days later_

Her arrival had changed everything.

Before the warehouse raid Robert Sandoval had been content to let the Before stay in the past. Content in the knowledge that he might never learn about who he was before the Beginning.

He had come to terms with it and made peace with it. The Before had been so far out of his reach for his amnesiac mind that getting it back was an impossibility. Wishful thinking.

Until she came into his life.

Now that it was within reach, Roberto desperately wanted to know about the Before again. It was a thirst that nearly threatened to consume him.

He couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. Couldn't think.

"…_I also_ _know that when you really want something you'll go to any lengths to get it. And you desperately want your past back, I can see that just by the way you look at me."_

He hadn't seen her in two days and still her voice rang in his ears. Every minute of the day.

She knew him. Deeply and intimately.

"No," he corrected himself. "She doesn't know you. She knows Robert." It was what she insisted on calling him. Not Roberto, but Robert.

"Is that why I chose the name Roberto…because my real name was Robert?" he whispered aloud. What else did he do now, solely because he had done it in the Before. "Was I a police officer in the Before? Is that why I chose the career I chose?"

_What else? _

"_Donde estas_?" a voice lulled him out of his thoughts.

"What?"

Detective Valencia Munoz looked at him, giving him a gentle smile. "You look like you're somewhere else, boss."

Roberto held her gaze longer than he should have. Of all the officers he worked closely with, Valencia Munoz was the only one he called a friend. Enough so that she had asked him to be a godfather to her only son, Daniel.

"Can I ask you something?"

Her expression was serious now, in response to his. "Sure, boss. Anything"

"You know that I have no memory of my life that goes beyond ten years."

She nodded, sitting down across from his desk. It wasn't something he talked about and he could see she was surprised to see him mention it now.

"I heard that you have amnesia, yes."

"There's a huge part of my past that I know nothing about," he told her. "This past week, I got an unexpected chance to find out about it."

Munoz's face lit up, "That's good news isn't it?"

Roberto smiled, "It is. It's amazing. But it comes with a price."

"A price?"

"I might have to compromise who I am now to find out who I was."

Valencia Munoz was puzzled. "I don't understand…"

Her genuine interest, concern even, touched him. It also made him uneasy. This wasn't something he did. He didn't confide his fears with his detectives. He was their leader after all. "I'm sorry…" he mumbled. "I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"How badly do you need to know?" she pressed.

He didn't answer, but he had no doubts that his eyes gave him away.

"Hey…" she said softly. "You're the best cop I've ever worked with. But more than that, you're a good man, Roberto."

He said nothing, turning away from her. Valencia understood that it meant the conversation had ended. She stood up from the chair opposite him.

"I know," she told him before leaving. "That you'll make the right decision."

_La Catedral Prison, Medellin_

She was still in the same solitary cell.

There was nothing in it, aside from a cot, a shower and a toilet.

No books, no television, no diversions beyond the four dark walls that enclosed her.

"You're back," she announced when he stepped inside it. The edge in her voice was gone. The fear and indignation was replaced by something else; resignation.

"Hello, Anna."

She didn't reply.

"I want to help you, Anna."

"The only way you can help me is to get me out of here."

"You know I can't do that."

She looked at him sadly, her eyes watering, fighting back tears. "There was a time, when I was falsely imprisoned, and you moved mountains to get me out."

Roberto wondered whether the reference to the past was fact or fiction. Hating that he had no way of knowing. "You're not falsely imprisoned," he pointed out.

"Are you married?" she asked out of nowhere. "Do you have a new family now?"

_A 'new' family? _

"I don't think that's any of your business," he managed.

"I'd like to know."

There was no malice in her tone. Nor spite or cynicism. He realized then that there never had been. Challenge and provocation yes. Always. Since he first met her a few days ago. But never malice.

"Well?" she pressed. "Is it that hard of a question to answer? Do you a have a family here in Medellin? Just say yes or no."

Why did he feel like he owed her an answer?

"No," he replied, too quickly. "There's no family."

What was it he caught in her face? _Relief?_

"Is there anyone you love?"

What kind of a question was that? Of course there were people he loved. There was Daniel. His godson.

And Maria. The woman who cleaned his house and cooked him dinner once a week, no matter where he moved to. Who sometimes behaved as though she was his mother, even though she wasn't.

Then there was Alicia. The four-year-old girl, whose eighteen-year-old mother had been killed in a gang shooting he couldn't prevent. And whose grandmother he now supported to make sure the little girl stood a chance to escape the endless violence of life in the _Barrio Triste_. Alicia. Whose big black eyes lit up every time he went to visit her in the one room apartment she lived in with her grandparents and brother.

Sometimes there were women too. Women who were with him because they wanted to be with Roberto Sandoval, Assistant Commissioner of the Medellin Police. Women who left him when the novelty wore off. When they decided his scar didn't look nearly as appealing or as exotic in the morning light.

"Does that matter to you?" he asked.

"I'd like to know what your life is like now."

Roberto tightened his lips. "There's so _much_ that_ I_ want to know. And you won't offer me anything."

Anna eyed him with an expression he couldn't read.

Why was he so mesmerized by those eyes?

"What do you want to know?" she asked, hinting that she might offer him an answer.

One answer to one question. If that's all she were to give him, what in the world could he possibly ask?

"Was I a criminal like you?"

Her eyes narrowed. Hurt.

"No, no… " she answered slowly, "You weren't. You always followed the law, Robert. Even when it wasn't easy for you. It's one of the things that made me love you. Your honour. Your integrity."

He felt a weight lift from his shoulders.

It was nothing but her word. Yet he believed her. She wasn't lying to him. He _knew._

He knew, because he knew _her_, he suddenly realized.

"Do I…" The words had difficulty leaving his throat. "Do I have a family somewhere?"

Anna hesitated. "Yes, you do, Robert." Her voice lowered. "You have a brother, a best friend…and a daughter."

Roberto's heart stood still.

_A daughter. _

"Are you saying _we_ have a daughter?"

She didn't answer.

"Damn it…_tell me_!"

He _had_ to know. Damn it. She had to tell him. She couldn't dangle something like that in front of him and not tell him more.

"I'm telling you, that _you_ have a daughter. That's what I'm telling you."

"Is it o_ur_ daughter?"

Tears fell down her face.

"Answer me, damn it!"

God, did she have any idea how _much_ he needed to know? How _long_ he had waited to find out something, however small a morsel of information it was, about the Before?

"I said you have a daughter. That's all I'm going to tell you."

It wasn't _their_ daughter, Roberto decided. Oddly enough, that revelation didn't bring him the relief he expected.

If she was the mother of his child, Anna would use that to her advantage. But she wasn't. Therefore the only logical explanation was that they didn't share a child. Anna knew he had a daughter, but it wasn't theirs.

"Please…" he managed. "Please, if you know my daughter please tell me something about her…_anything_."

"She's beautiful and compassionate, like her father."

_A daughter. He had a daughter. His flesh and blood. _

"And…?" God, she had to give him more than that.

Anna's face hardened, as she wiped away her tears. "Help me get out of here and I'll take you to her."

"Tell me where she is and I swear I'll do everything in my power to get you of here legally!"

Silence.

"_Tell me, Anna!"_

"No…I'm sorry," she was defiant, shaken but unmoved by his burst of anger. "Not this time, Robert. This time it has to be by my rules. You get me out of here and I'll take you to her."

Roberto seethed. More blackmail. If she was telling him the truth about his daughter then of course she wouldn't tell him where his child was. Because if Anna told him, he wouldn't need her anymore.

She fed him snippets of information, knowing it would torment him. Knowing how much he hungered for every little detail that slipped from her lips.

"Is your job worth more to you than your past?" she had the nerve to ask.

He moved closer to her. Close enough to feel the warmth of her skin next to his. "Tell me…are you enjoying this?"

She shook her head guiltily, biting her lip. "No…I hate it, Robert. But I'll die if I have to spend the rest of my life here. I need you to have a reason to help me."

Roberto straightened his shoulders.

He towered over her, surprised at how small she was when she stood next to him. He searched for a trace of pleasure or cunning in her eyes, almost disappointed when he found neither.

As a cop he knew there was a good chance she was lying. That there was no daughter. That it was all an elaborate ploy. A big, fat carrot she dangled in front of him, because she now knew his Achilles heel.

Yet at the same time he knew she was telling the truth. He couldn't explain how. But he knew.

There were a thousand things he wanted to tell her. Starting with exactly how he felt about her manipulations.

He was angry. Livid.

And, as if thrown off balance by their closeness, there was an unrecognizable part of him that suddenly wanted to run his fingers along her skin.

Roberto moved back, hating himself for the thought. For that momentary loss of control.

"You think you know me, Anna," he seethed, locking his eyes with hers. "But you don't."

And once again he left her cell by turning his back and slamming the door shut behind him, without looking back.


	7. Chapter 7

**VII**

_Paris, France_

Robin Scorpio bit her fingernail as she stared out the window. It was raining outside. A cold, fall rain that was clearing the city's smog filled air.

"I swear to god, Mom…you better have a good reason for disappearing like this or else…" The guilt hit her before she could finish mumbling her thoughts aloud.

"I'm sorry…I don't mean that," she told no one. "I don't care if you walk through that door and tell me you're sorry you didn't call for a week. I swear, I don't care…just walk through the door, Mom."

It was a ridiculous thought. Her mother wouldn't forget to call. She might have done some reckless things in her time, but Robin knew she would never let her worry like this unless…

"Unless something's really wrong."

Robin ran a hand through her hair. "Stop it…" she mumbled. "Stop acting like she's not coming back."

There was a nook by the window in her apartment where Robin could sit and look down onto the sidewalk below. It was where she sat now, her back against a pillow and her knees pulled up, staring at the pedestrians rushing home from work. Her eyes scanned the tops of their umbrellas, wondering if it was possible that her mother was among them.

'You know she's not,' she thought, scolding herself. She pressed her eyes shut and noticed that they stung with fatigue.

Mac would be here soon.

The thought filled her with both relief and fear.

Relief because she knew that Mac would be able to do more in person than he had been able to over the phone from the US. Fear because of what his presence implied.

'It means you're just as worried as me,' she thought. 'You wouldn't come here if you weren't. It means you don't have a single lead.'

There was a knock on the door and it made her jump off the window ledge she sat on.

Robin glanced at her watch. Mac's flight should have landed only a few minutes ago. He couldn't be here already, could he?

She ran to the door. Maybe his plane had arrived early?

Robin stood on her toes to glance out of the peephole, puzzled at seeing a stranger on the other side.

"Can I help you?" she asked through the closed door. From what she could see the man standing in the hallway was older. He had thick white hair and wore an old fashioned pin-stripe suit.

"Are you Anna's daughter?" the man asked.

"Who are you?" Robin demanded, suddenly unnerved at the mention of her mother's name.

"Please," he answered. "Open the door. I can't tell you what I have to say from the hallway."

"_Who are you?" _

The man behind the door moved closer to the peephole. "My name is Spencer Gooding. I'm a friend of your mother's."

_La Catedral Prison, Medellin, Colombia_

'Why the hell didn't you tell him that you're the mother of his child?' Anna asked herself for the umpeenth time. That confession might have been the one thing that would have softened his attitude towards her.

But in the back of her mind she knew the answer. 'It's_ exactly_ why you didn't tell him,' she thought, rolling her eyes. Because she didn't want his sympathy. Didn't want him helping her only because she was the mother of his child. 'As though it matters why he helps you at this point,' she thought, sighing, 'As long as he does.'

Or was it because, deep down, she didn't want him to know the truth?

Seeing the disapproval on his face each time he looked at her, took her back almost two decades in time, to that fateful day when she had first shown up in Port Charles.

He had hated her then. He hated her presence because it reminded him that he had fallen in love with her and allowed her to betray him. He hated her for breaking his heart. And most of all he hated her for coming between him and Holly.

Robert had never said as much, but Anna could imagine what must have gone through his mind then. How he must have wished that it was Holly who had given birth to his first child. Not Anna. Not the liar and the double agent.

Even then, Anna had only told him about Robin because someone had kidnapped her and she'd been desperate. She had never wanted him to think he owed her anything because she was the mother of his child.

'This is a little different, isn't it?' she thought with a frown. 'I'm already using his past to blackmail him into helping me out of here. What's the difference if I up the ante?'

"_Was I criminal like you?"_

The words didn't sting any less each time his voice repeated them in her mind.

"Why are you so offended by that?" she asked herself bitterly, curling into a fetal position on the uncomfortable mattress. "It's the truth, isn't it?"

Once a thief, always a thief.

Her presence in this claustrophobic jail cell was proof enough.

In the end, Anna knew she didn't tell him because Robin simply meant too much. Too much to be used as leverage.

Robin had always been more like her father than her mother. And for the first time in years, Anna wished she would have had the courage to let Robin go when she still had the chance. No matter how much it would have hurt, all those years ago; Anna wished she had the courage to let Robin go to live in Australia with Robert and Holly.

'Maybe then,' she thought tiredly. 'Neither of us would be here today.'

_Medellin, Colombia_

Roberto Sandoval sat on the steps of the _Metropolitana Catedral_, staring blankly at the small group of students chatting and congregating in front of him.

Medellin didn't boast many public areas where both rich and poor, young and old, mingled freely. The Parque Bolivar, that surrounded the continent's largest brick church, was one of the few exceptions.

It was one of the perks of no longer working Narcotics.

Roberto could now walk through the city without wearing a bulletproof vest and without two or more bodyguards breathing down his neck. Without having to explain himself when he sat down on the steps of a church to watch others enjoy life in a city park.

Were he still the head of Narcotics, Roberto knew his bodyguards would have told him that by sitting in the middle of a park in broad daylight, he might as well have painted a bull's eye on his chest.

A little girl, wearing a yellow dress to match the yellow ribbons in her black hair, ran past him and suddenly tripped directly in front of him, bursting into tears as soon as her knees scraped the stone walkway. Roberto jumped to help her up, but he was too slow. The little girl's _abuela_ had beaten him to it.

He watched as the old woman comforted the crying girl, unable to take his eyes off either of them.

Anna's voiced rang through his skull.

"_I said you have a daughter. That's all I'm going to tell you."_

"_She's beautiful and compassionate, like her father."_

A daughter.

If Anna was telling the truth, he had a little girl somewhere out there.

'No, not so little,' he corrected himself. It had been over ten years since the explosion. If he did have a daughter, she would be at least that old. Quite likely older.

Roberto's lips curled into a smile. 'A teenager or maybe even an adult by now.'

He wanted to see her so badly it hurt.

"_Is your job worth more to you than your past?"_

Had Anna asked him that question a few months ago, he might have said yes. If he answered yes now, he knew it would be a lie.

'Then again if I were still working Narcotics I never would have met you, Anna…' What was that old cliché? 'Everything happens for a reason?'

His gut instinct told him she was telling the truth about his daughter and he trusted his instincts.

He had never yearned as badly for anything as he now yearned for a link to his past.

_"I said you have a daughter."_

Now that he knew about her existence, Roberto knew he would do whatever it took to find his daughter. If that meant getting Anna out of jail, so be it.

He would find a way.

_Paris, France_

The man looked at her with a kindly smile.

"It's been a long, long time since I've seen you, Robin." He had an English accent.

Robin stared at him in disbelief. _"Who are you?"_

She had let the old man enter her apartment against her better instincts, but she had to admit she sensed no threat from him. Along with his charming smile, he wore a bow tie and a tweed suit.

He looked a bit like a librarian.

"You were about _this_ high," he told her, holding a flat palm next to his thigh. "Your hair was in pig-tails."

"I asked you who you are," Robin repeated, her voice harsher. "You said you know my Mom."

"May I?" Spencer Gooding asked, taking off his jacket and pointing to a coat rack he saw in the corner.

"No, you may not," Robin told him, straightening her back. Her brows narrowed in irritation. "I asked you who you are and how you know my Mom. Don't just waltz in here, telling me you know me, while you put up your jacket, as though we're old pals having tea!"

"Oh dear," the old man's smile faded. "I see you really are your mother's daughter."

"_How do you know her?"_ Robin repeated, emphasizing every syllable, unaware that her hands had positioned themselves defensively on her hips.

"Your mother used to work for me."

"Where? How?"

"She…" Spencer Gooding paused. "She was a broker. I was a purchaser."

"What the hell does that mean?"

The old man's lips pursed. "Tell me, Robin…how much do you know about your mother's life before she joined the police?"

What kind of a question was that? Robin glared at him, "Look…I know my Mom wasn't a saint, if that's where you're going."

"Fine then," Spencer Gooding conceded. "I shall put it bluntly. Your mother used to fence stolen goods. Sometimes I found buyers for her and sometimes it was the other way around. I ran an antique shop in Manhattan, where your mother lived with you when you were small."

"And?" Robin didn't understand. "You're here in Paris to chat about old times?"

"I have a shop in Paris now," he explained. "Your mother stumbled into it a couple of weeks ago. Quite by accident, although, truthfully, I don't really believe in coincidence."

"Do you know where she is?" Robin blurted out.

An uncomfortable expression lined his face. "I…no, Robin I don't…not exactly. But there are some things I need to tell you." He glanced at her messy sofa. "May I sit down?"

Robin's knees felt weak. Sitting down was a good idea, she decided.

"Yes."

He sat down and gestured for her to join him.

"When your mother came into my shop I showed her something."

"What?"

"I can't go into details, Robin, but I'll tell you that it was a priceless South American artefact. An ancient Mayan mask. I had a buyer for it, but no one I trusted to deliver it."

"What?" Again she didn't understand. "What does this have to do with my Mom?"

"Robin, you have to understand that your mother was once very good at what she did," Spencer paused again. "But more importantly, I trusted your mother, which is more than I can say for most people that I work with."

"So you asked my mom to take your artefact to your buyer?" Robin asked in disbelief.

Spencer Gooding took a deep breath. "I offered her a job, yes."

"This is crazy. What you're telling me…this is some sick joke." Robin wasn't sure whether to laugh or shake her head at the absurdity of what this man was telling her. "Mom's a Police Chief. She'd have you arrested before…"

Spencer reached out to put a hand on hers, "Your mother did turn me down."

"Of course she did."

"But then she changed her mind."

"No…" Robin shook her head. "You're lying, my Mom would never…"

"There was something odd about your mother when I saw her at my shop. She seemed so...so lonely. Sad too. Then, when she held the mask in her hands, it's as though it… made her come alive."

Robin didn't know what to say anymore.

"Not everyone has a love for antiquities and rare art, Robin," Spencer Gooding explained gently. "It's much like a taste for classical music. You either have it or you don't. Your mother has an exceptional eye for detail. When I showed her the mask, it was like showing a wine lover an exquisite bottle of Chateau d'Yquem. Once she saw it, she had to hold it, touch it and…"

"Would you get to the point?" Robin managed.

"She agreed to take it to my buyer. She also knew she would net ten percent of the sale."

"Mom didn't need money. She was doing fine."

"It wasn't about the money, Robin," Spencer Gooding explained. "Your mother took the job because it was a challenge."

"But something happened didn't it!" Robin demanded. "Did something go wrong? _Where_ _is she_?"

Spencer Gooding sighed and removed his spectacles to rub his eyes. "Robin, dear…please, I need you to stay calm for me."

Robin jumped up off the sofa. "_Calm?_ My Mom disappears after she smuggles your stolen goods and you tell me to stay calm?"

"Robin, please," he chided. "I made no mention of any stolen anything."

"Oh, spare me the lies! Tell me where you sent my mother!"

Spencer took another deep breath. "She took it to Colombia."

"South America?"

"Yes. She flew into Bogotá, but her final destination was Medellin. Robin, there was a police raid in Medellin little more than a week ago. It barely made the press here but it was a big story in that part of the world. The raid was a joint effort between the Americans and the Colombian police. It took place thanks to an inside tip given to them from a mole within Escobar's cartel…"

"_What?"_ Robin cut him off, "You're telling me your buyer was some South American drug lord?" His story kept getting more absurd.

And for the first time since meeting him, Robin saw a trace of annoyance on the old man's face.

"Robin, would you kindly let me finish?"

Robin bit her tongue. This man had some nerve. To tell her some half-cocked story that her mother was suddenly smuggling stolen artefacts to South American drug lords because she needed a challenge. As if she wouldn't question every word.

"I have reason to believe your mother may have been caught in that raid."

_Mom was caught in a police raid in Colombia, trafficking a stolen mask worth god knows how much._

"This is crazy," Robin mumbled aloud. "I don't believe what you're telling me…"

"Robin!" The old man's hands gripped her shoulders. "I came here today because I'm worried about your mother! I've risked a lot to come here today and tell you this!"

Robin stared at him, "_You've _risked a lot? What about my mother?"

"This is why I came to you…I need your help to find her."

Robin ran her hands through her hair, still not ready to absorb what this stranger had just told her. "Look…if what you're saying is true, then it's a good thing my Uncle Mac is coming here today. He's a Police Commissioner. He can sort this…"

The old man gripped her shoulders tighter, "What did you say?"

"If Mom's in some sort of trouble, he can help her out of…"

"Are you mad?" Spencer Gooding shouted. "You cannot bring the police into this Robin!"

"Look," Robin brushed off his hands. "I'm done listening to you. Mom _is_ the police! She would never do anything that could get her in trouble with the law…"

"Have you not heard a word I just said? I'm telling you she _did_! She _did_ do something that could get her into a _lot_ of trouble with the law!" The old man's jovial expression was gone, replaced by something harsh and cold. All of a sudden he didn't look like a kindly librarian anymore. "And if she hasn't got caught yet, then the very last thing you want to do is get the police involved."

"Mac isn't 'the police'," Robin shot back angrily. "He's my uncle!"

Spencer Gooding glared at her. "Let me put this in simple terms for you Robin. That mask is worth millions of dollars. It was stolen from the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City. If your mother is caught with it, she's in big, _big_ trouble! Do you understand that? Can you get that through your thick skull?"

Robin's jaw dropped in disbelief.

_Worth millions of dollars. Stolen from the National Museum of Anthropology._

All of what this man was telling her was impossible.

Her mother would never…

_Or would she?_

Robin didn't have time to contemplate the notion.

A knock on the door interrupted her shock.


	8. Chapter 8

**VIII**

_Paris, France_

"Oh no..."

Robin Scorpio stood on her toes to look through the peephole and then turned back to Spencer Gooding, aghast.

"That's my Uncle Mac out there," she whispered.

The old man's face tensed. "You cannot under any circumstances tell him a word about what I just told you, Robin. Do you understand that?"

There was another knock, louder this time.

"Robin? Are you there?"

She heard her uncle's voice from the other side of the door.

Robin stared at Spencer Gooding. "I don't know what to tell him…he'll want to know who you are…what you're doing here…"

"Don't you have a wardrobe?" he asked her.

"A _what_?"

"A closet," he whispered. "A bloody closet I can hide in, Robin! That saves you an explanation until you can get rid of him."

Robin stood in a daze, _"Rid of him?"_

"So I can leave the apartment," Spencer Gooding explained, slowly, as if speaking to a child.

Robin pointed to her bedroom, "There's one in there."

Before she could say another word, the old Englishman ran into it, out of her sight.

"Robin?" Mac's voice repeated, louder this time. "Are you in there?"

Robin pushed a strand of hair behind her ears. She used to think she got nervous before an exam, yet _that_ anxiousness was nothing compared to the way her stomach twisted into knots now. 'Deep breath…' she thought, without following through. She moved to open the door.

"I'm sorry, Mac," she said breathlessly. "I was in the…bathroom."

Her uncle's kind, handsome face looked at hers with concern. "Sweetheart, are you alright?" He pulled her into a hug while still standing in the doorframe, before she had the chance to answer.

"Yeah…I'm fine," she answered, oddly relieved to see him in spite of the man she had hiding in her closet. She felt suddenly guilty. "Actually…I, uh…" Robin managed, returning his embrace with one of her own. "I don't…I don't feel so good today."

"Robin, are you sick?" The concern on Mac's face deepened. "Is it the HIV?"

"I…uh." She blushed guiltily. "No…and yes. Some of the meds I have to take. Sometimes…sometimes they make me really nauseous."

Mac frowned, "Your mother's disappearance can't be helping. Sweetheart, do you need me to take you to a doctor?"

Robin shook her head, hating the apprehension that was written all over Mac's face. "No…but there...there is something you could do for me."

"What, Robin?"

She walked over to a cabinet and took out a piece of paper, a medical prescription. "There's something I can take for the nausea," she explained as she held a hand to her stomach for added effect. The protocol she took did make her miserably ill on occasion. It was a believable lie. "But I wasn't feeling well enough to pick it up today, do you mind getting it for…"

She couldn't finish her sentence.

"Of course… where's the nearest pharmacy?"

She gave him the directions, followed by a lopsided smile, "I'm sorry…I didn't even ask you how you're doing?"

"Later," he said softly, pulling her into another embrace. "Go lie down. I'm here now, Robin. You don't have to deal with all this by yourself."

Robin sunk into a chair at her kitchen table as she watched her uncle leave the apartment. She had barely given him time to uhnload his carry-on in her apartment.

She heard Spencer Gooding emerging from the bedroom closet. A smile draped the old man's thin lips. "That was most excellent! You truly are your mother's daughter, after all."

This time the observation didn't feel like a compliment. "Mac is like a father to me," she said bitterly. "I hate what I just did."

"Don't my dear. Guilt is such a wasted emotion." The old man's smile faded. "A little lie should be worth your mother's freedom, shouldn't it?"

"Just get out of my apartment," Robin ordered him.

"Here," he handed Robin a piece of paper with an address on it. "Meet me there tomorrow as soon as you can get away from your overprotective uncle. I'll be there all day waiting for you."

Before she had the chance to say another word, he was gone.

_Medellin, Colombia_

He had made his decision.

He would help her escape from La Catedral. If that's what it took to see his daughter. To get a chance to know about the Before; then he would do it.

"_I'll die if I spend the rest of my life here. I need you to have a reason to help me." _

Anna's words echoed in his skull.

She probably wasn't kidding. The way she spoke told him she was educated. The way she carried herself told him she wasn't accustomed to street life, the way most of La Catedral's other inmates were. The clothes she wore on the day they of the raid also told him that she was used to the finer things in life. All those things combined, told him she wouldn't last more than a few months in prison.

Never mind what the other inmates would do to her once he took her out of solitary.

_Where are you from, Anna? _

_How did we meet? _

Roberto Sandoval rubbed his temple, trying to ignore the beginnings of a headache. He sat in front of his desktop computer, a glass of Jack Daniels at the side of the keyboard.

Making the decision to discard everything he had become, and everything he _was_, had been hard enough, but now that that impossible decision had been made, there was another problem:

_How?_

Getting her out of prison would not be his biggest problem. The transfer of inmates from one institution to another occurred daily.

In Anna's case he would request a transfer to a lesser security facility. It would be based on the prisoner's agreement to disclose information in exchange for more comfortable accommodations.

Roberto knew the request would be met with ease and once it was, he would orchestrate the actual transfer himself.

By law all prisoner transfer required the presence of at least two law enforcement officials.

'Minor problem,' he thought, picking up his glass of whiskey.

The law required it, true. But he outranked every officer currently working at La Catedral. Rank which he had never pulled before but which he would need now, when asking to leave La Catedral alone, with an inmate in tow. Escaping from the transfer van would be harder, but not impossible.

"Then what?" he asked himself.

That was the hardest question. What did he do with her once they were out and instant fugitives? How would he make sure she kept her end of the bargain and took him to his daughter, without getting either of them caught in the process?

He would need to get them both out of Colombia as soon as he got her out of jail.

Roberto Sandoval stared at the computer, unable to keep the images from his mind. Countless images of what his daughter might look like danced in his brain while he tried to formulate a plan.

A plan that would end in a reunion with his daughter. Maybe even with her mother.

It would be a reunion with his past. At long last.

Roberto stared at the computer, his headache worsening.

The Before was around the corner now and the lengths he was willing to go to reach it frightened him.

Roberto rubbed his eyes, suddenly terrified of what he might find in the past.

_Paris, France_

_The next day_

Robin Scorpio closed her umbrella and pulled out the piece of paper on which Spencer Gooding had scribbled his address yesterday, double checking to make sure the number on it matched the one on the door in front of her. A sign reading "Ferme" hung on inside the shop window.

The awning atop the entrance wasn't large enough to shield her from the rain, and a splash of water hit her naked neck, making her cringe.

Robin didn't have a chance to ring the doorbell. The door opened automatically.

Spencer Gooding's head peaked out from behind it and he cocked it back and forth, as if checking to see whether someone had followed her.

"Come on inside," he ordered her, stopping just short of yanking her into the store by her collar. "Took you long enough."

Robin used the sleeve of her shirt to rub the water off her neck and stared at the old man, irritated already. "It's not that easy taking off on my uncle, you know. After he flew in from the States specifically to help me find my mother. Mac's not an idiot."

"So what did you tell him?" Gooding asked, taking her umbrella and setting it into an ornate, bronze stand.

"I told him I had to go to the university to speak to a prof about postponing an exam."

The old man frowned. "Lies that involve other people and a place where others can track you are always a bad idea. Didn't your mother teach you that?"

"No," Robin answered, incredulously. "This might come as a surprise to you but my mother didn't teach me how to lie and deceive."

"So I see. Too bad for you." The old man ushered her down a narrow corridor. They were flanked on both sides by countless pieces of antique furniture, paintings and sculptures, crammed into a space that at first glance didn't seem large enough to accommodate them all. There wasn't an inch of empty floor space in Spencer Gooding's store and yet, rather than hopelessly cluttered, it managed to look both comfortable and inviting.

Were she here for any other occasion, Robin would have loved to rummage through the endless works of art here, imagining bygone eras where works like these would have fit like a fine, silk glove. Times of splendid estates and men in top hats and women in hoop skirts.

"How much time do you have, before your uncle gets suspicious?" Spencer Gooding asked, leading her through a low-hinged door and into a back room that was just as full of treasures as the one they had just left. He carefully closed the door behind them, flipping on a light switch that bathed the room in a warm, orange glow.

Robin noticed a relatively clutter free desk in one corner of the room. There was a computer on it.

"I have about an hour before I need to head back," Robin told him. "And for your information, I didn't give him anything concrete on which department I was going to. It's not like he can just call up the university to check on me."

Spencer Gooding smirked. "So you _are_ offended then, by me calling you a bad liar."

"Maybe I'm just offended that you're suggesting my mother didn't teach me well," she snorted.

This time the old man's smile broadened into a chuckle. He held up a flat palm. "Okay, okay, you win." He gestured for her to take a seat in front of the computer. "Please."

Although the desktop computer was state of the art, the table on which it sat was as old as all the other furniture Robin had seen in Spencer's shop. Its thick, curvy legs were elaborately engraved with Greek motifs and the oak tabletop was heavy and flawlessly varnished. Robin sat down on the matching chair and wondered how much it was all worth.

"Take a look at this," Spencer Gooding told her, hitting the space bar on the keyboard to reveal what looked like a newspaper article on the screen in front of her.

Robin couldn't understand what it said. "I don't speak Spanish," she told him.

"I speak it well enough to understand what the article says," the old man told her.

"So why did you need me to read it with you?"

"Your mother used an alias when she travelled to Colombia and I need you to tell me what you think about the list of people who were arrested," he explained, pointing to the bottom of the screen. "Take a look here, Robin. Most of the article focuses on this guy, one of Escobar's right hand men. This one here." He pointed to a grainy photograph. "But here, at the bottom there's a full list of names of the people arrested during the raid, I need you to tell me if…"

Spencer Gooding didn't get a chance to finish.

Robin gasped and covered her mouth with her hands when she read the name.

_Filomena Soltini. _

"Oh my god…" she whispered.

"What is it?"

Robin's hand touched the computer screen, shocked at seeing a name that had once filled her with so much love, in an article about drugs and gunfire and stolen goods. "That's her…that's Mom. If you say Mom used an alias, then that's it. I'm absolutely certain."

_La Catedral Prison, Medellin_

Anna Devane was asleep when the iron door of her cell clanged open.

The noise startled her awake and she rubbed her eyes to see Robert standing inside her cell.

Anna yawned, not bothering to get up. It was cold in the cell and now that she was awake, she started to shiver. "Are you back for round three? Or is it four? I've lost track."

"Depends whether or not you count our first meeting," his familiar face snickered, his eyes not laughing along.

"Why are you here?"

Robert pulled two pairs of handcuffs from his jacket pocket. He grabbed her arm and fastened one onto her wrist before she had a chance to protest, handcuffed the other clasp to his own wrist, binding them both together.

"Hey!" she protested. "What are you doing?"

He drew her up towards him and he opened the second pair of handcuffs, repeating the process once more. "One more…to be on the safe side."

This time she struggled, "I don't think so…"

Robert grabbed her arm, but his voice and expression were soft. "Look, don't fight me. I'm here to give in to your blackmail and take you out of here."

Anna relaxed, letting him fasten the second pair of handcuffs, again linking her to him. A double, steel bond. "Two cuffs? What do you think I'm going to do…bite through the first pair?"

"Maybe," he quipped. Once they were securely fastened he faced her.

"You're going to calmly walk out of this cell with me. Once we're in the hallways we're going to be monitored by cameras in every corner. If you try anything funny, all bets are off and I won't make any guarantees as far as your life and well-being are concerned. Do we understand each other?"

Anna felt the now familiar flush of hot indignation rise in her throat.

_Was I a criminal like you? _

He might as well have asked the question again. "I just want out of here, Robert. You do whatever it takes."

"Once we leave the building, there's an armoured van waiting to transport you to a new detention facility…"

"What?" Anna pulled back from him, her wrists rubbing against the handcuffs. "That wasn't what…"

"Hey!" Robert held up his hand. "Let me finish. That's the official version."

"But…?"

"We'll be leaving the armoured van before it reaches its destination."

"How?"

"Look, you don't worry about the technicalities." Robert's lips tightened. "All you do for the next hour or so is follow me. Understood?"

"Yeah." Anna nodded, then glanced down at the handcuffs that bound them together. "Like I have choice."

He shot her a final glance. "Ready?"

She didn't have to know him to know that Robert wanted to crawl out of his skin rather than do what he was about to do. Nor could she miss the loathing in his eyes each time he looked at her. Loathing for what she was making him do.

"Thank you," she said softly, wanting to reach out to him. To touch him. To let him know the last thing she wanted was to hurt him. "I know how much this is costing you."

"No, you don't. You have no idea, Anna," he told her, his blue eyes cold. "Spare me the thanks and the small talk. You worry about one thing only. Getting me to my daughter."


	9. Chapter 9

**IX**

_Paris, France_

"How can you be sure that Filomena Soltini is your mother?" Spencer Gooding asked her.

Robin hadn't noticed that he had pulled up a chair and was now sitting down next to her. They both stared at the computer screen in front of them.

"It's my grandmother's name…" she explained. "Not my biological grandmother, but the woman who married my parents in Italy, before I was born. When my Dad left my Mom, Mom went back to Italy to have me, and Filomena helped her out. She ended up staying with my Mom and me when we went to the States. I think Mom loved her as much as if she were her real mother, and grandma always thought of Mom as her own daughter. She was killed by a man named Grant Putnam. He wanted to kidnap me and grandma tried to stop him. She was killed protecting me..."

Robin didn't realize that tears were rolling down her face until she felt Spencer's hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Robin."

She wiped them away. Embarrassed. "This is proof then, isn't it?" she asked the old man, grabbing a tissue to wipe her nose. "That Mom's been arrested."

"I think so, yes," the old man agreed sombrely.

Robin swirled around in her chair, "But I don't get it. If Mom's in jail, why wouldn't she have contacted me or _anyone _for that matter?"

"Maybe she doesn't want you to know…"

"What?"

"Or maybe she's still hiding behind her alias."

"What do you mean?"

Spencer Gooding sighed, sagging his shoulders. The action suddenly made him look small and old. "As of now, the woman who was arrested wasn't your mother. If she was released right now, as Filomena Soltini, it would mean your mother would have no criminal record…do you understand what I'm saying?"

"You're telling me Mom's trying to protect _her_ identity?"

Gooding nodded, "Yes."

Robin frowned. Couldn't her mother have thought of smearing her good name _before_ she decided to smuggle stolen Mayan masks halfway around the world? "But what if she _doesn't_ get released?" Robin asked.

"We have to do something about that," Gooding replied, his wrinkled face deep in thought.

"What?"

"For starters, we have to go to Colombia."

_La Catedral Prison, Medellin, Colombia _

"Can I at least change my clothes, brush my teeth and comb my hair?"

Roberto eyed her. She did look like a mess.

"It's not a release, it's a transfer," Roberto reminded Anna. He raised their handcuffed arms. "Besides, couldn't have thought of all that before I cuffed you?"

"You didn't exactly give me much time…"

"Fine. Brush your teeth and comb your hair."

He stood beside her, next to the rusting sink, as she did both, with her right hand while still handcuffed to him with her left.

Their sudden closeness made him uncomfortable. Enough so that he almost pulled out the keys to undo her handcuffs.

'It's because you're about to break her out of jail and throw away everything you've worked for in the last ten years,' he reminded himself. 'Not for any other reason.'

"Can you help me with this?" her voice interrupted his thoughts. "I can't do this with one hand."

Roberto took the cheap elastic band from her hand and tied her hair into a pony tail.

He did it automatically even though it wasn't something he'd ever done before.

_Or was it?_

"Thank you."

Why did her eyes always have to be so full of…recognition? Why did she always have to look at him like she knew something that he didn't?

"Let's go." He pulled down his left hand harshly, taking hers along with it. "We don't have any more time to waste."

Roberto ran a magnetic entry card through an electronic panel in the wall and then punched in a security code manually, opening the doors of her cell with another clang.

Once they were in the hallway, she matched his rapid pace.

Passing by other cells, some inmates shouted out from behind iron bars.

Anna turned back to glance at them, but Roberto tugged at her wrist.

"Don't look around you," he admonished her. "Look down." The less people that remembered their faces, the better.

His heart pounded furiously. His hands were clammy with cold sweat. The only reason his legs moved at all was because he willed one foot in front of the other with every step he took.

In a couple of hours he'd be a fugitive. Hunted by the same people who once followed his orders.

That was, _if_ everything went according to plan.

They turned around a corner.

And nearly collided with Detective Luis Rigato.

"_Sandoval?"_ the heavy-set man looked at both of them, puzzled. _"Adonde vas con ella?" _

Roberto's heart sank into his stomach and stayed there, pounding away furiously. Were it not for the noise of the inmates in the background, he was certain both Rigato and Anna would have heard it.

Of all the men on his force to collide with. It had to be the one who put Anna in the communal cell. The one he'd chewed out and embarrassed in front of Valencia Munoz as a result. The one officer on his immediate detail that he loathed.

"Transfer to Los Rios," he explained, holding up his handcuffed arm, wondering if his voice sounded even a fraction as casual as he was aiming for. "If you'll excuse us. I'm late. The van's waiting outside."

He'd simply move past the detective.

As his commanding officer, Roberto didn't owe Rigato an explanation. Given that Rigato was one of the main investigating officers in a case in which she was the prime suspect, it was, however, glaringly unprofessional to not let him know about a facility transfer and the reasons behind it.

But as commanding officer, _technically,_ he had the right.

Together with Anna, they were already several steps away from Rigato when the detective called out to him.

"_Sandoval!" _he yelled. "_Porque vas solo?" _

Roberto's cheeks flushed red-hot and he stopped dead in his tracks.

The law required two officers for a prisoner transfer. Regardless of rank, Rigato had every right to question why only one was present right now.

"They're two men short today, so I ordered them to stay at La Catedral," Roberto managed, before turning to Anna. "She's not a threat."

Luis Rigato's face was a mask of suspicion, staring Anna up and down. "I bet those women she attacked didn't she was a threat either."

"They attacked her," Roberto corrected him.

Luis Rigato bristled at the unexpected rebuke.

"The law requires two officers for a transfer," Rigato persisted. "I will come with you."

"That's not necessary."

"Yes it is," Rigato answered taking pleasure in the obvious irritation that his presence was causing the Assistant Commissioner. "_Es la ley,_" he reminded Robert smugly.

Roberto shot the detective a look that would have killed him if it could.

Yet there was nothing he could do. Rigato was right and he knew it. If he pressed the issue Rigato's suspicions would sky-rocket and he'd alert every officer in the building before they even stepped out of the front door.

Roberto tightened his lips, barely managing the strain of the one syllable word he hissed in return.

"Fine."

He didn't need to see Anna's apprehensive glance to know what she was thinking.

Rigato's presence meant they needed a change of plans.

A major change.

_Paris, France_

It seemed like every word that came out of Spencer Gooding's mouth was more preposterous than the one before.

"Colombia?" Robin looked at him in disbelief. "You want _us_ to go to Colombia?"

"Well, yes," he answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Someone has to get your mother out of jail. We're the only ones in a position to do so. We're the only ones who know _who_ she is!"

"So, we'll go there and do what exactly? Ask them to kindly release her? Or are we going to break her out?"

Gooding gave her a disapproving frown. "Sarcasm doesn't become you, my dear."

"You're the one who keeps telling my I'm my mother's daughter" Robin snorted, "And you didn't answer my questions!"

"I don't know exactly how yet," he sighed. "But I know we can't do it from here."

Robin stood up, tired of this insanity. "I'm going to tell my uncle Mac. He's in a position to do…"

The old man glared at her again. "He's in a position to make sure your mother never leaves that prison!"

"Don't you get it? He's on Mom's side!" Robin yelled, too frustrated to mind her manners.

"Robin…" Spencer started again. "Your uncle is the law. Your mother broke that law. The two can't mix. Why aren't you understanding this?"

"I can't just take off for Colombia with you and hope that my uncle doesn't notice!" Robin shot back incredulously. "What am I supposed to tell him? That I'm going to the corner store for milk…with a suitcase and an airplane ticket?"

"Robin, my dear…"

She felt his hands on her shoulders. His voice was calmer than it had any right to be given the circumstances.

"Your mother's best hope right now is in her anonymity. Her lack of a previous criminal record. If your uncle blows her cover and the Colombians find out they have an American ex-Police Chief in custody, everything suddenly becomes much more complicated. Making sure she gets punished for her crimes becomes a matter of politics. A matter of sticking it to the same Americans that have meddled in Colombian affairs for far too long. I need you to come to Colombia with me, Robin, and I trust that you'll find a lie to tell your uncle." He added, gently. "You are your mother's daughter, after all."


	10. Chapter 10

**X **

_Medellin, Colombia_

_We need to get rid of him. _

_Need to. _

_Now. _

The thought ran through Roberto Sandoval's mind like a broken record, playing the same verse over and over. Luis Rigato was one variable he definitely hadn't accounted for.

The one variable that could collapse his entire plan before it got off the ground.

The three of them sat inside the prisoner transfer van now, on metal benches. Roberto and Anna on one side, Luis Rigato on the other. It was unbearably hot and the air was so stagnant and humid, it was a small miracle all three of them could get enough of it into their lungs to stay alive. Roberto's heart pounded and his palms were sweaty. And he couldn't bring himself to look at the woman who was handcuffed to him.

When she saw that Luis Rigato wasn't looking, Roberto felt Anna's hand squeeze his.

The gesture made him risk a glance in her direction and when he did, he saw her mouth the words, "Calm down."

Her face was unreadable. If she was as nervous as he was, she wasn't showing it. Her hands were dry and steady. A trickle of perspiration had formed around her hairline, but that was a result of the stifling heat, he suspected. Nothing else.

'Who has nerves of steel like that?' he wondered. This was _her_ life on the line too. _Her_ freedom. 'How cold and calculating does she have to be in order to stay calm at a time like this?'

Roberto lifted his eyes and looked across from him and caught Luis Rigato's eyelids droop as if he were about to fall asleep. Asleep or unconscious in the stuffiness of the van.

_Did they really transport prisoners like this? Did his__ police force treat people worse than cattle?_

A twang of guilt crossed his brows, at the knowledge that he wouldn't be able to do anything to change that fact, after today.

"I have to take him out," he whispered to Anna, putting the thought aside.

"Then what?" she whispered back. "We're trapped in here."

Roberto's eyes stayed glued to Rigato's sleeping form, even as he whispered to Anna. "No, we're not." That was all she needed to know for now. She didn't need to know about the absurd amount of money with which he had bribed the vehicle's driver to open the automatic door that sealed them in.

Roberto checked his watch.

In mere minutes, they'd be approaching a tollbooth that would force the vehicle into a stop and roll pattern.

The tollbooth was situated on a double-lane, hillside road, flanked by a forested incline on one side and a steep ravine on the other.

At the base of that ravine was where he had hidden a rental car that would take them to an airfield 30 minutes south of the city. From there he had chartered a private plane to take them both to Panama City.

Once their vehicle came to a complete stop the driver would open the rear door allowing them to jump out. The driver would wait just long enough to allow them to disappear down into the ravine before jumping out after them and giving chase. Or at least pretending to.

The officer would have to call for back-up to save him from suspicion, but by the time it arrived it would be long enough to allow them to get a decent head start.

It was a risky plan that hinged on enough variables as it was, without the added strain of Rigato in their path.

Roberto turned his attention away from Rigato to give Anna a final glance.

"Ready?" he asked a final time.

Anna nodded in silence and this time he caught a flicker of fear in her dark eyes.

Roberto raised his hands and cupped them together, aiming for Rigato's fleshy neck, oblivious to the fact that Anna's handcuffed hand rose up alongside his.

With a 'whoosh' he sent his cupped hands crashing down onto the beefy man's throat.

Roberto heard a gasp and then a thud as Rigato's dead weight crumpled to the metal floor of the transport van. Before his brain had a chance to register what had happened, Roberto further knocked the wind out of him with a kick straight into his solar plexus.

The two actions made his knees shake.

It had been a long time since he had disabled a man with his own two hands and, no matter how much he disliked Luis Rigato, what he did disgusted him.

It made him nauseous to see how easily he had became precisely that which he loathed.

'_All this to see my daughter…' _

As if she could read his thoughts, he heard Anna say, "It's okay, Robert."

He shook his head.

No. It wasn't okay.

None of this was okay.

Rigato groaned and writhed on the floor and Roberto turned him over, delivering another blow below his neck. This time he felt the man go limp underneath him.

Roberto rubbed his sore hand, with his handcuffed one, pulling up Anna's alongside his.

"The door should open any moment," Roberto breathed to Anna without looking at her. His life as he knew it was slipping through his fingers.

He had bribed one police officer and assaulted another. He was as corrupt as some of the cops he had spent years cleansing from his force.

He didn't think he could ever loathe himself as much as he did in that moment.

"Then what?" she asked.

"You run with me."

Luis Rigato was lying on the floor of the van, unmoving.

A metallic click rang through the humid air and Roberto saw the van's rear door open. Its mechanism was controlled by the driver in the cabin, out of their view.

A breath of fresh, cool mountain air wafted inside.

As soon as the gap was wide enough for them to duck underneath it, they did just that, jumping onto the paved road outside.

Anna followed him, blinking as the bright sunlight blinded her vision. She tried to keep up with Roberto's pace so that he didn't have to tug at the handcuffs that bound them together.

The driver of the car directly behind the transport pressed on his horn in shock, when he saw the two prisoners jump from the van.

Roberto wondered if the driver would try and alarm someone with a cell phone.

That didn't matter now. The only thing that mattered was that they ran down the ravine as fast as they could, disappearing into the rainforest below in order to get to his rental car.

An oncoming car screeched to a halt as they ran across the two-lane highway. More horns flared in the air, filling his eardrums with the noise.

The noise made Anna stop dead in her tracks and Roberto had to pull her along.

_"Run!" _

Getting her to not only keep up with his pace, but to synchronize her movements with his so that the weight of her arm wouldn't cut the metal of the handcuffs into his skin, was next to impossible.

They ran awkwardly at first, arms flailing, slowing each other down in the process. Roberto noticed small bloody cuts on both their wrists, as the double metal rings rubbed against each other and pressed into their flesh.

More car horns joined the noise, and Roberto thought he heard car doors opening in the distance as some of the more daring drivers briefly contemplated giving chase to the two escaping fugitives.

They kept running, distancing themselves from the road above.

Roberto pulled Anna along as they made their way down the mountainside, knees bent, half running, half jumping on the steep angle of the terrain.

A few more feet and then a wall of trees would both aid and hinder them.

The tropical forest would slow their progress with its dense foliage, but at the same time it would provide a cover from the curious drivers on the road above, whose voices now mixed with the horns.

Anna turned around, her breathing heavier now, trying to maintain their furious pace.

She was slowing him down, struggling to keep up with him. Twice she almost tripped and this time when he grabbed her arm, he saw her wince, perspiration covering her face.

'Damn it,' he thought, watching her from the corner of his eyes. Maybe he had misinterpreted her calm in the van. It wasn't calm after all; it was exhaustion.

Seeing her now made him remember that she was beaten up in prison only days ago and refused medical attention. But of course Anna wouldn't admit to being hurt, if that meant delaying her escape from La Catedral.

A commotion from the mountain road above them interrupted his thoughts and Anna turned around.

"Don't look back!" Roberto yelled, tugging at her with more force. They would make much faster progress if they weren't handcuffed together, Roberto realized. But he didn't trust her to stay by his side if she wasn't tied to him.

"Oh god…" Anna exclaimed, catching her breath.

Roberto couldn't resist glancing back up into the hillside road they had just come from, to see what had caught her attention.

"Oh no…" Roberto's eyes widened in response to what he saw.

It was Luis Rigato emerging from the transport van, aiming his gun at them.

_Paris, France_

Unlike Spencer Gooding suggested, Robin decided she wasn't going to lie to Mac.

As if there _was_ a way to explain disappearing for a few days. Especially after Mac had come to Paris specifically to help her search for her missing mother.

So instead of coming up with an elaborate lie, she had simply waited for Mac to retreat into the spare bedroom and fall asleep.

Robin didn't allow herself to think of his reaction the next morning, when he'd awake to find an empty apartment. As if searching for his missing sister-in-law wasn't draining enough for him, Robin didn't want to contemplate how he would deal with her disappearance on top of it.

She knew that he loved her like a daughter, and she hated what she was doing. Yet at the same time she didn't want to risk Spencer being right about what he said. What if Mac would inadvertently make things that much more difficult for her mother?

"I'm sorry, Mac," she whispered in the darkness. "Please forgive me for what I'm about to do."

Spencer Gooding had already bought them two tickets to Sao Paolo, from which they would connect to Medellin. Their flight was due to leave Charles de Gaulle just before midnight tonight.

Robin would be across the Atlantic before Mac would notice she was missing.

Once she was there she'd find a way to let him know she was okay.

She hoisted a backpack onto her shoulders and grabbed a windbreaker jacket, before tip-toeing out of her bedroom.

She moved slowly and carefully, so as to avoid bumping into anything in the darkness. Making noise that would wake her uncle was the last thing she needed.

Her hand was already on the doorknob when suddenly the room flooded with light, blinding her.

Robin gasped in shock and jumped around to see her uncle standing behind her.

Disappointment lined his handsome face.

"Going somewhere, sweetheart?"


	11. Chapter 11

XI

**XI **

_Medellin, Colombia_

The ravine they ran, or rather, stumbled, down, was steep at first, full of thick, ground-hugging plants whose dark, green leaves were draped across the earth, forcing Anna and Robert to jump over them to avoid tripping.

It was hot and humid, but after the stifling heat inside the van, the air felt almost refreshingly cool.

Inside the heat of the transport van, there had been moments when Anna's vision had clouded over and she had seen not one but two officers sitting across from her. Two Rigatos. It was an illusion she realised then, afraid that the unbearable heat might make her pass out before they had a chance to escape the vehicle.

Now that they were outside, her head pounded and she was so thirsty she wanted to reach down to grab one of the lush green leaves and bite into it.

Robert had pulled her into the forest ahead and it was then that she had turned around and seen Rigato emerge from the van behind them, gun in hand.

"_Get down!" _

Robert's free hand reached over and pushed her down. They hit the ground before Anna knew what was happening.

Two bullets whizzed past them, one flying into the distance, striking a rubbery tree trunk with a muted hiss.

As she suspected the ground they'd stood on was soft and moist, and Anna dug her free hand into it, relishing its cool feel against her hot skin.

"I thought you knocked him out…" Anna exclaimed. Her voice sounded faraway to her ears.

"Yeah…" Robert was lying facedown on the ground next to her, his cheek and scar dirtied by the wet, moist earth. "So did I."

He turned around slowly, in the direction of where the bullets had come and Anna felt herself being yanked upright again by the metal bond that joined them at the wrist.

"He's coming after us," Robert told her, a panicked expression on his face. "We have to outrun him!"

He was already on his feet and Anna too pushed herself up only to feel her knees give in again, buckling underneath her.

"_Anna!" _

This time it wasn't a tug at her wrist that brought her back to her feet, but Robert's arm that wrapped behind her back, pushing her back up. Letting her know that falling down was not an option.

"I'm okay," she mumbled. She was so dizzy and thirsty she would have given an arm and a leg for one sip of water.

"You're not okay," Robert pointed out, his arm still around her waist. "You could have told me as much."

Anger flushed her cheeks, temporarily steadying her shaky legs and blocking out the pounding in her skull. His words were yet another accusation. One that suggested he was the only one with something at stake here.

She _would_ be okay, damn it.

"I didn't say anything..." Anna brushed off his arm. "Because I figured you could use something _else_ to hold against me."

His blue eyes locked with hers and did something unexpected. They softened, despite her sarcasm. "Look, I'm sorry. I should've realized you're in no shape for this," he admitted. "But it's too late now. Rigato is going to catch up to us in a matter of minutes. Can you run?"

"Yes."

A reluctant smile lifted the corner of his lips. "Good."

As _if_ there was another answer. Anna's anger softened too. It was the first time he had looked had looked at her with something other than loathing and confusion.

Anna held up her bloodied wrist, pulling his up along with it, to make her point. "If I had known you were planning a run through the jungle, I would have put up more of a struggle against these. This has got to be one of your dumbest ideas ever! Double handcuffs…_for god's sake, Robert!" _

Robert's smile faded and this time she thought she caught a trace of guilt on his face.

"We don't have time to argue about this."

To prove his point, another bullet whizzed through the air and Robert's eyes widened. "Rigato isn't firing warning shots."

Glimpsing into the dense forest ahead, they didn't hesitate before breaking into a run again.

Anna felt Robert's handcuffed hand clasp itself around her wrist, reducing the tug of the metal, so that it was his powerful grip that pulled her forward instead.

"Hang on."

_Paris, France_

"Mac?"

Robin's heart sank into her stomach when she saw her uncle, sporting a bare chest and a pair of pyjama bottoms, standing behind her. Thanks to the flick of a switch, the living room she had so carefully kept pitch-dark was now flooded with light.

"Mac…I'm…I was just heading over to the university."

"In the middle of the night?"

"The labs are open late someti…"

Mac's lips tightened and his eyes narrowed in anger. _"Stop lying to me, Robin!"_

Robin bit her lips. An old, nervous habit she might have inherited from her mother.

She really didn't know _what _to say anymore. Would her mother have known what to say? Maybe Spencer was wrong. Maybe she was really her _father's _daughter after all.

Robin watched her uncle take a deep breath.

"There's something very strange going on here and you're going to tell me what it is."

"Mac…I'm sorry, but I _can't_!"

Mac's arm had somehow found its way around her shoulders. "Yes you can, sweetheart."

Before she knew what he was doing, he had gently nudged the backpack off her shoulders and guided her towards the kitchen table, to sit down on one of its chairs.

He pulled up a chair next to her, "Robin, tell me what's going on."

Robin shook her head, "I can't, Mac. I'm sorry." She might have run out of lies and she was likely going to miss that flight to Sao Paolo but she wouldn't risk her mother's safety, even at the risk of her uncle's wrath.

"You didn't go to the university yesterday either, did you?"

Robin said nothing.

"At a time like this, you wouldn't have run off to the university to do something you could have easily done over the phone."

Robin blushed. If Mac _knew_ why didn't he say anything until now, she wondered.

As though reading her mind he explained, "I figured you had your reasons for whatever you were doing, and I've always trusted you, but now when I see you sneaking out of the apartment in the middle of the night, that's not good enough anymore." Mac tiredly rubbed his chin with his hand. The shadows under his eyes told Robin he was still jet-lagged and that maybe he'd been getting as little sleep as her since the news of her mother's disappearance.

"I'm not an idiot, Robin."

"I would tell you if I could…" she started, feeling her eyes well up. Mac had been her father for much of her life. A role he hadn't chosen, but one he'd filled without a moment's hesitation. She owed him more than the deceit that Spencer had dragged her into.

"Is someone blackmailing you, Robin?" Mac prodded. "Because if they are, they're using fear tactics to manipulate you. They've got you convinced that telling anyone anything about your mother could harm her, but that's a lie, Robin. I would _never_ do anything to jeopardize your mother's safety. Do you understand that? _Never_."

Although Robin rarely felt very young anymore, she did just now.

Mac had a point. Spencer had convinced her that Mac's position in law enforcement would harm her mother, but maybe Gooding had his own reasons for keeping the law out of the equation. Maybe his reasons for keeping Mac away weren't as selfless as he was suggesting.

"Robin, did someone kidnap your mother?" Mac asked her. As urgent as his questions were, his voice stayed calm, gentle even, as though she had all the time in the world to answer. "Are they holding her for a ransom?"

Robin shook her head.

"Then what?"

A single tear fell down her face.

"Robin, do you _know _where your mother is?"

Silence.

"Sweetheart, if you know where your mother is, you have to tell me! No matter what anyone's been telling you. Telling me is _not_ going to hurt your mother."

Robin wiped away a tear. Torn. How could she not trust the one man who had loved and raised her like his own daughter?

Mac lifted her chin with his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze, "Robin, did it ever occur to you, that by keeping this to yourself, you might actually be doing your mom more harm than good?"

Robin wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly chilled.

"Mac…" she started slowly. "If I tell you something, will you promise me you'll put Mom before your job…before the _law_?"

Her uncle's eyes narrowed, not understanding. "What do you mean?"

"Will you swear to me?"

"Are you asking me if I would break the law to help your mother?"

"Yes. That's what I'm asking."

Mac paused before answering, his eyes never leaving hers. "Do you remember Dominique, Robin?"

Robin nodded.

"There was a time when I knew what it was like to be on the other side of the fence, and it was your mother, not Robbie but Anna_, _who was willing to break the law for me and the woman I loved. Anna's not just your mother, Robin. She's my _friend_. I would do whatever it takes to bring her safely back to us. _Even_ if that whatever includes breaking the law."

Robin hesitated.

"Robin, you _have_ to believe that!"

She paused.

Mac waited.

And then she started telling him. Everything.

She told him how Spencer Gooding had shown up her apartment. How he had hidden in her closet while Mac went to the pharmacy. She told him about the mask and the job Gooding had offered her mother. About her visit to his shop and the article she had read online. About the police raid in Medellin and the unmistakeable alias she knew only mother could have used.

When she finished, Mac sat in silence with her, the shock written all over his face.

Robin stomach muscles tightened with apprehension and she wondered whether she had just sealed mother's fate.

_Medellin, Colombia_

Just when Anna didn't think she could possibly take another step, she felt Robert's grip on her wrist tighten.

"There it is!" he announced breathlessly, stopping just long enough to point to a small, grey car deftly hidden underneath a particularly leafy tree.

How had he gotten it there?

Was there a road leading out of this impossible maze of trees?

Anna had barely caught her breath, when with one unspoken glance Robert urged her to run towards it.

Seeing an end in sight gave her a burst of adrenaline and, with an energy she didn't think she still possessed, she willed her legs to keep up with his, unaware that her cheap prison uniform had torn during their run, and that several black, clingy insects had found their way inside it, nestling on her skin.

The car, with its promise of seats, a roof and a set of wheels, maybe even air conditioning, was like an oasis in the desert.

She understood now why Robert had handcuffed her to him to way he did, his right arm to her left. Because he knew he'd eventually be driving a car with her sitting to his right.

Anna managed a smile when they neared the car. They made it through the first stretch.

Then she heard the sound of footsteps coming from the forest behind them.

"They can't be this close…"

Rigato had appeared overweight, sluggish even. How fast could he possibly be? How much endurance could he have after Robert had knocked him out?

Or maybe the question she should have asked was: how slow had_ she _been?

Anna was nearly at the driver's side door, when she heard the deafening sound of a bullet shattering the car's window, sending glass shards tumbling to the ground.

Another bullet hit the metal door, almost immediately after the first. Two rounds, one after the other.

Anna was about to sink down onto the ground, but Robert beat her to it, pulling her down. There was no time to run around to the other side of the vehicle and use it as cover.

Robert draped her body over hers, instinctively shielding it from the assault of gunfire that came from the forest behind them.

They had barely hit the ground when she heard Robert gasp as though someone had knocked the air of him.

His body convulsed.

He was hit.


	12. Chapter 12

**XII**

_Medellin, Colombia_

In addition to shielding her from the gunfire, Robert's body suddenly weighed down on her, pressing her into the ground.

"Robert!"

"I'm okay," he shot back, yanking her handcuffed hand aside to hoist himself off her. "We have to get around to the other side of the car!"

"We have to get _into_ the car!" Anna twisted her body around, so that her back was on the ground and he was on top, staring straight down at her. A thin, trickle of blood dripped down from his shoulder onto hers, and she saw him clench his jaw in pain.

The bullet had hit him in the left shoulder.

Anna hoped that at the very least it was a clean shot and that it went right through.

"Into the car," she repeated breathlessly.

If he didn't pass out from the loss of blood soon, then how the hell was he going to drive with that shoulder? She couldn't drive, not the way they were handcuffed to each other.

Another bullet shot into the car's side door, inches above their heads, making Anna wince. Why wasn't the shooter coming out of the forest, now that they were pinned on the ground like sitting ducks? More importantly, if the shooter was Rigato why the hell wasn't he shouting a warning?

Maybe the question of who would drive wasn't their most pressing concern.

"Your gun," she shouted, "Draw your gun, damn it!"

"Are you insane?" Robert's blue eyes widened. "That's a cop in there."

"That cop just shot _you_!"

"I can't shoot one of my own men!"

"Then give _me_ the damn gun!"

Given that his right hand was handcuffed to her left, and his left arm injured, having her take the weapon made more sense as it was, even without Robert refusal to use it.

"If we don't fire back, he's going to kill us," Anna pressed.

Robert hesitated, and then directed his gaze to his holster. Though he might not have agreed with her, his look told her he didn't see an alternative either.

Anna didn't hesitate. She unfastened the gun from its leather pocket, clasped it in her right hand and aimed it towards the human shape that moved through the trees behind them. Being unable to clasp it in both hands made aiming it a challenge.

Forcing her eyes to focus, she caught an outline of a man's body, between two trees.

And then fired.

Two rounds. Then another two.

After the third round they both heard a thud. And then nothing.

Silence.

"You shot him," Robert announced, breaking the silence.

Anna leaned against the car, drained at the thought of having taken a life. "The bastard would have killed us. He didn't even try to capture us. He fired without warning, " she pointed out, knowing it was pointless. She had probably saved both their lives, yet she at the same time she knew Robert well enough to know that he wouldn't see it that way. Bitterness mingled with her exhaustion. "Is that what you teach your men here, Robert? Shoot first, ask questions later?"

Robert pulled himself up alongside her, defensive. "Rigato's always been a loose cannon."

Anna closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to open them again and discover that this was all a dream.

Because just then, she wasn't sure she still cared.

Whether Robin saw her father again.

Whether Robert would ever look at her the way he used to.

Whether either of them would stay alive long enough to find out.

Robert nudged her, urging her eyes open. "Come on. We have to get in that car now, before the police block the road. Rigato might have already radioed a description of my car after he saw it."

"You can't drive with that arm," she pointed out. "It must be killing you."

Robert clenched his teeth as if to verify that fact, "We're not going to go very far."

If she had the energy for it, she would have rolled her eyes. "Undo the handcuffs and let me drive."

"I don't think so."

"What do you think, I'm going to do?" she shot back in disbelief. "Run off? By myself? A fugitive with no papers and not a word of Spanish. If you don't trust me, at least trust what makes sense and let me drive the bloody car!"

"You just shot a man," he said bitterly. He hoisted himself up along the car's side, pulling her up alongside him. "And now you're asking me to trust you? I don't think so, Anna. You got into Colombia just fine on your own, I'm sure you'd have no problem getting out of it."

Slowly and painfully, the blood from his shoulder wound trickling down his arm, he yanked open the driver's side door. "Get into the passenger seat."

"You're right," Anna bit her lips in acrimony. She slipped into the seat beside him, sinking tiredly against its softness. "I don't know you anymore, Robert."

_Paris, France_

"This is a lot to swallow, Robin."

Those were the first words that came out of his mouth and he uttered them just as Robin wished she could retract every single thing she had told Mac.

They still sat at her kitchen table, in semi-darkness. Her uncle wearing nothing but his pyjama bottoms, while she was dressed in full runaway gear, complete with overstuffed backpack and windbreaker jacket.

"I know," she conceded. There were moments she was still convinced she'd wake up and find herself lying in her bed, laughing at the absurdity of what she had just dreamt.

"You're telling me your mother smuggled a stolen mask, _worth millions of dollars_, to a drug lord in Colombia where she got caught by the local police trying to drop it off to its buyer?"

"Yeah," Robin's lips twisted into a lop-sided smile. "It does sound crazy doesn't it? When you put it like that."

Mac's stone faced expression didn't change, "Robin, are you _sure_ of all this?"

"The article I read confirmed it for me. Filomena Soltini, Mac! Who else would use that alias?"

"I don't trust this Spencer Gooding. Everything about him sounds shady."

"He _is_ involved in a shady business," Robin countered. "He never denied that. I think it's one of the reasons he was pushing so hard for me to leave you out of it. He can't afford to have the law involved any more than Mom can."

"Exactly," Mac told her. "And what makes you think he isn't conning you about everything else? Do we have proof this mask even exists?"

"According to the newspaper article I read, it does. I considered the same things, Mac. That Spencer could be lying to me. But if he ism it would make no sense," Robin. "Everything he's done so far has been an inconvenience to him. He's asked me for nothing, no money, no information…nothing."

"But _why_ Robin?" Mac pressed, "Why would your mother do something like this after all these years? Is there something I don't know about? A debt? Did she owe someone a favour?"

Robin frowned, sensing she knew the answer, yet not entirely sure she wanted to share it. She remembered the change on her mother's face the day she'd come to see her here and lied about going to the Musee D'Orsay. She hadn't gone to the museum then. She'd been in Spencer's shop, just as Robin had only hours ago.

Her mother had probably seen the mask there and when Spencer has asked her to take it to its buyer she must have felt the thrill of a challenge. She had finally found a risk that might be big enough to help her forget.

"I don't think this is about money, Mac," she said softly.

"Then what?"

"It's about Leora and David. About having nothing left to lose."

Her uncle's face darkened. "I see."

"What now?" Robin asked him quietly.

She saw his mind spinning, eyes focused in concentration, until finally the hint of smile raised his lips. "What time is that flight to Sao Paolo, Robin?"

Robin narrowed her brows, not sure she understood. "Almost midnight. Why?"

Mac stood up. "If I can find a clean shirt while you call a cab, we'll make it to the airport with time to spare."

_On the outskirts of Medellin, Colombia_

Silence accompanied them during the entire ride.

Tense silence, fraught with the anxiety that they could still get caught after their narrow escape. But silence nonetheless.

No matter how isolated the curving mountain roads were that Robert drove along, they were both alert to any and all traffic they encountered.

Turning sideways, Anna caught a glimpse of the pallor of Robert's skin. He was losing too much blood and it took a huge effort just to hold the steering wheel. Some of the roads they travelled along were unpaved making the task even harder.

The scar that ran along the side of his face was strikingly visible now, against the increasing whiteness of his skin. 'Was that from the tanker explosion?' she wanted to ask. 'How long have you lived with it? What do you say when others ask you about it?'

"Drink the rest of this," Anna told him instead, breaking the silence as she held the nearly empty water bottle up to his lips. She'd found it in the car, half empty, and drank it greedily, even though it was milky and lukewarm. Finding it lying on the passengers seat had felt like finding a treasure. Only a couple of ice cubes and a bottle of aspirin would have made it even more precious.

Robert shook his head, "No. We're almost at the airfield. You take the rest."

"You're in lousy shape. You could go into shock," Anna frowned, lowering the bottle again. "Does everything have to be an argument?"

"Not arguing," he corrected her. "Telling you."

He barely finished his words, when Anna saw him slam on the brakes, pushing her forward into the dashboard. "What the hell…?"

Robert veered the car off the road, into the forest that surrounded them on either side. "Above us," he explained.

"What?"

"Police helicopters," he pointed out.

"Are you sure?"

He rolled his eyes, "Yes. I'm sure."

"But it's an _airfield_," Anna pointed out. "Maybe…"

"Police aircraft don't do routine maintenance and landings at this airfield," Robert cut her off. "I'd never have chosen it if they did."

"Then why…?"

"The fact that there are two of them tells me they're expecting us. "

Anna's heart stood still. _What else could possibly go wrong? _She didn't want to ask her next question. "What does that mean?"

He turned to her, as weary as she had ever seen him. "It means…it means we have to find another way out."

"You need medical care, Robert."

He leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes, and for an instant a chilling fear gripped her. Fear that he wouldn't open them again. "I know," he answered, eyes still closed, his face ghostly white now. "But a hospital is out of the question."

"We have a gun, " Anna offered. "Find a clinic, and we'll do whatever…"

Though his eyes still wouldn't open, he smiled. "You'll do what? Make them treat me at gunpoint? Why do have a feeling you actually might do it?"

"Because I would." Anna frowned, pushing herself up in the car seat. "I won't let you…"

"You won't let me what? _Die_?"

She wouldn't humour him by saying the word aloud. He was right, she wouldn't. Let him die. Not now. Not ever. Robert was badly hurt. Because of her.

Again.

Anna reached over to grab his hand, squeezing it. "Open your eyes, damn it! You have a beautiful daughter who spent the last ten years thinking you were dead! You have to get us out of here, if only so you can tell her she was wrong."

"Tell me about her," he said softly.

Anna shook her head, alarmed at the defeat in his voice. "Oh no…I don't think so, Robert. You can learn all about Robin when you talk to her in person."

His eyes opened and Robert turned sideways to look at her. "Robin? Her name is Robin?"

A surge of relief flooded her. "Yeah…Robin. She was named after you."

He repeated the name. Slowly. Tenderly. Testing it to see how it sounded on his lips. As though saying it aloud might conjure her up somehow, right here and now. Inside their rental car.

Anna squeezed his hand harder, "Turn the car around, Robert. Get us to a doctor who can look after you. No matter how we have to force him to do it. Then we can worry about the next step."


	13. Chapter 13

**XIII **

_Charles de Gaulle International Airport, Paris, France_

Robin couldn't help a smirk of satisfaction when she saw Spencer Gooding's reaction to Mac's at the check-in counter.

'You almost convinced me to come here alone,' she thought bitterly. 'You almost convinced me to deceive the one person who's been a father to me for half my life. The _one_ person I should have trusted the moment you told me about Mom.'

The old Englishman, who wore a trench coat and cotton cap tonight, clutched a tartan coloured carry-on case as he looked at them aghast. He turned to Robin in shock. "What have you done?"

"What she should have done from the very beginning," Mac answered for her. He shot the old man a look of disgust. "You took my daughter's concern for her mother and twisted it into something that would protect yourself and the illegal business that landed Anna in this mess to start!"

Spencer Gooding was at a loss of words for the first time since Robin had met him. "I…I have no idea what you're talk…"

"Spare me," Mac cut him off, gesturing the three of them towards a row of seats in the corner of the terminal, flanked on two sides by floor-to-ceiling windows. "I know exactly what you do and how you do it. Believe me, I've met enough of your kind in my lifetime, and I couldn't care less about your business dealings right now."

Spencer still said nothing.

"Did you ever think that maybe my position in law enforcement could _help_ Anna?" Mac asked. "Of course you didn't, because Anna really isn't your first concern is she? Maybe she's just an afterthought next to getting back your precious mask?"

Outrage masked the old man's face now. "I've risked my livelihood and turned my entire life upside down simply by going to see your niece! Do you think if I didn't give a damn about Anna I would have…"

"I'll tell you what I think…" Mac hissed, inching closer to the old man's face. "I think if you gave a damn about Anna you would have never asked her to do what you did."

"Stop it, Mac," Robin stepped in between the two men. "Mom's got a mind of her own. If she didn't want to take on his job, she wouldn't have. You can't blame Spencer for that."

The old man gave her a look of pure venom. "I don't need _you_ to defend me after you ratted me out to your uncle."

Robin narrowed her brows in irritation, "Oh, please. If you actually mean what you say about giving a damn about Mom, then forget about _you_ for a second and let her have all the help she can get." She turned back to Mac. "I could say the same for you. Pouncing on Spencer the second you meet him is only going to make him leery of us." Her shoulders dropped. "Do you think maybe the three of us could get along long enough to figure out a way to help Mom get out of this mess?"

Mac eyed Spencer skeptically, "As long as we're being straight with each other, I'm the most accommodating cop you'll ever meet." He sat down on one of the chairs in front of them, "You want to start by telling me exactly how you and my sister-in-law know each other, and what exactly she was doing for you, before she got caught in the middle of a Colombian drug raid?"

Robin sat down next to them in silence.

It was going to be a long flight.

And they hadn't even boarded the plane yet.

_Medellin, Colombia_

The further they walked the more afraid Anna got.

They waited for the sun to set before dumping Robert's rental car at a commuter train station parking lot. Then they started walking. Slowly, and with Herculean effort, like the walking wounded that they were. They stood out like easy prey, even with Robert's dark jacket masking both the blood it was soaked in and the handcuffs that tied them at their wrists.

Earlier, Anna took some solace knowing there was a loaded gun in Robert's holster, but now, in this desolate neighbourhood, even that didn't offer her much comfort.

The streets they walked along were narrow and poorly lit, making it hard to see just how many people loitered around them. Anna caught glimpses of human forms moving in and out the occasional beams of light they passed.

When she did make eye contact with the shadows, hostile stares flew in her direction, sending shivers up her spine.

The buildings around them were bleak and unadorned. Grey, brick houses with occasional sheets of corrugated tin that substituted for roofs and walls. From the corner of her eye, she caught a stray dog peeing on the sidewalk.

Garbage was strewn everywhere and now, in the increasing darkness, petroleum can fires sprung up in every corner, surrounded by clusters of street children holding plastic bags up to their lips. Unlike the hostile stares she caught from the adults, the dirt smeared faces of the children had vacant, disinterested eyes.

Anna had a feeling that the kids they saw were so high that they wouldn't bat an eye if she and Robert were gunned down in front of them.

"Where the hell are we?"

"Downtown Medellin," Robert answered, his breathing heavy and laboured. "Barrio Triste."

Anna didn't have to know Spanish to understand what it meant. She couldn't remember ever having seen a sadder neighbourhood. Despair and decay were everywhere she looked, even in the sour, smoky air that made its way into her lungs.

Robert had weakened drastically in the last hours. He held on to her, leaning his weight on her so that walking was a challenge now, one she knew she wouldn't be able to keep up much longer. His face, merely pale before, was now a frightening, ghostly white.

Anna marvelled that he _was_ still standing at all.

"Robert w_hy_ are we here?"

_Don't let him collapse here…please, anywhere but here…_

She had never been religious, but that one plea chanted in her mind like a prayer. She didn't want to think what would happen if they stopped walking.

"Because they won't look for us here…" he whispered, clutching on to her shoulder to support himself.

"You brought us into a ghetto, to get away from the police?" Anna wasn't sure she understood. "Robert, this is crazy. You need a doctor. Not a syringe filled alleyway that I'm scared to walk down for fear that someone's going to jump us!"

As if to confirm her fears, Anna suddenly felt someone else's hands on her shoulders. She turned around with lightening speed, her free hand immediately reaching for the gun in Robert's holster.

"_Roberto!"_

The man who shouted Robert's name was young, in his mid-twenties, with black hair and eyes. And he looked at Robert as though he'd seen a ghost.

"_Estas loco? Que haces aqui?" _

Much to Anna's surprise, she saw a smile of recognition on Robert's face. "I was hoping you'd find me before I found you…"

Anna listened as Robert said something else to the man, hating that she couldn't understand a word. In the middle of their conversation, Robert's voice faded along with his strength, and suddenly his knees buckled.

"Oh god…" His weight pulled her down and it was only the young man's effort to hoist Robert up that kept him from falling to the ground.

"_Gabriel! Ayudeme!" _

Another man came out of the shadows and threw Robert's arm over his shoulder, lifting him up and dragging him along.

"Careful!" Anna cautioned. "He's hurt!"

The second man looked at her as though he didn't understand.

"_Il est blesse_!" she tried in French, pointing to his shoulder. Frustrated. French was as futile as English.

Robert groaned in pain when the first man hoisted him up by the arm, making the second one realize he was hurt.

Anna was tugged along, as the two of them half-dragged, half-lifted Robert away from the main street and into an alleyway.

Again the second man gave her a puzzled stare and Anna pulled back the sleeve of Robert's jacket to reveal the handcuffs that tied them together. A subtle nod of the head told her he understood.

'I swear these are coming off as soon as we reach shelter, even if I have to strip search you for the keys, Robert…' she thought, frustrated.

They left the main street, and the meagre light it offered, and disappeared into a dark alley. Anna felt a shiver of fear run up her spine again. The stench of garbage was more marked here and it nearly overwhelmed her.

"Who are you?" she demanded of the men, with a confidence she didn't feel.

"Anna…they're friends," she heard Robert mumble.

The two young men who were dragging them along looked like they belonged here. In this desolate, frightening neighbourhood.

What kind of Police Commissioner had friends in these parts? What _kind_ of friends?

She glanced at Robert, more afraid for _him_ than anything else. He was at the end of his reserves. He couldn't stand without help anymore and he'd lost so much blood she was certain he would soon go into shock.

'Please don't let him die…' The thought ran through her tired brain endlessly. Plea and chant all in one. 'Please let him see Robin again.'

Anna stumbled on the uneven pavement, almost pulling down Robert. The two men used all their energy to hoist him back up, shooting an annoyed glare in her direction.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

They kept walking, until finally they entered a building that might have been an apartment, although hated to think of anyone living in a nearly windowless block of concrete that smelled as bad as the alleyway they had come from.

Inside the building was a dark, narrow stairwell.

The two men paused in front of it. When they spoke in muted voices, Anna was certain it was to decide how to best drag Robert's unconscious form up into it.

The first man grabbed his shoulders, and the second one his legs. Anna wanted to help, but the handcuffs made her useless for anything but holding his arm, and inching along the side of the stairwell, trying not to get in the way of their tedious progress.

They climbed two stories before stopping, and it was then that Anna heard the sound of voices in the corridor. Light emanated from a dozen or so half-open doors and finally, the smell of kerosene and food overpowered the stench of garbage.

People did live here, Anna decided. More of them than she would have thought possible.

The two men knocked on one of the unopened doors and an elderly woman opened it, gesturing for them to come inside.

Anna looked around the sparsely furnished room. Its only other occupant was a little girl, no more than five or six years old.

A wood-burning stove stood in one corner and two kerosene lamps lit up two others. Pressed against a wall of peeling paint was a mattress, barely large enough to accommodate one person.

It was that mattress on which the two men dumped Robert. Anna slid down on the wall next to him, pulling up her knees as she sat with her back to it.

The two men glanced from her and to the old woman. One man said something to the other in rapid Spanish, then both of them walked out of the room, closing the door behind them.

"Hey!" Anna jumped up onto her knees. "Where the hell did they go? They can't just dump him here! He needs a doctor!"

The woman stared at her wide-eyed, while the little girl moved to hide behind her long, thick skirt.

"He's hurt, damn it!" She pointed to Robert in frustration. "Un medicin…doctor, _comprend_e?"

The woman mumbled something in Spanish and Anna thought she heard the word _medico_.

'The two men went to get a doctor', she thought, trying to make sense of what her words meant. 'Please tell me that's what you're trying to say.'

The old woman stood in the middle of her one-room apartment and her eyes focused on Anna with an intensity that made her uneasy. Yet when Anna took a closer look at woman's face she realized she wasn't trying to intimidate her. It was the opposite.

The old woman was terrified of her.

Anna's eyelids closed with exhaustion. 'How do I explain to her that she has nothing to fear?'

The old woman said something to the little girl, who scurried off to the wood- burning stove to fill a cup with warm liquid.

"Anna," she said softly, pressing a hand against her heart. She mustered what she hoped looked like a non-threatening smile. "My name is Anna."

The woman didn't respond by offering a name in return and the little girl ran to Robert's side with the cup of tea.

Anna knelt down and lifted his feverish head off the mattress so that it rested on her lap, allowing the girl to hold the cup up to his lips.

He drank only a few sips, barely aware of what he was doing, before drifting off back into semi-consciousness. When the girl noticed he couldn't drink anymore she offered the cup to Anna, who took it gratefully. "_Gracias_," she mouthed.

The girl stared at her in silence. She had huge, dark eyes and equally dark hair that hung down over her shoulders. Physically she reminded Anna of Robin at that age, except that her skin was darker and her face more sombre than any child's should be.

Anna leaned against the wall and drank the rest of the liquid, not sure that it was tea. If it was, it was the strongest, most bitter tea she'd ever tasted.

The handcuffs pressed against her bloody wrist when she raised the cup to her lips, lifting up Robert's arm alongside hers.

'Enough of this madness,' she thought, setting down the cup, oblivious to the fact that both the young girl and the old woman were still staring at her in silence.

Anna reached for Robert's jacket and her fingers fished for the keys that might unlock the handcuffs, cursing tiredly when none of the pockets yielded anything other than a couple of candy bar wrappers and a handful of coins.

She turned around and dug into the right pocket of his pants, and when that too yielded nothing she climbed over him, straddling him to reach into his other pocket.

Robert's eyelids fluttered open and he stared at her, disoriented. "What are you doing?"

His voice was barely loud enough to hear. Seeing him this weak terrified her.

She managed a lop-sided smile, "Taking advantage of you."

This time her fingers felt metal and she pulled out a familiar looking metal key. With a sigh of relief she opened the handcuffs, letting both of them fall to the ground on the mattress next to him.

"Anna…" Out of nowhere she felt his hand grip her arm, with a strength that surprised her. "Please…please tell me where she is…before you…"

The distrust in his eyes hurt more than her throbbing wrist. So did the knowledge that he firmly believed she would run at the first chance. "I'm not leaving you," she whispered, lowering her head so that her lips nearly brushed his skin. Gently she ran her fingers through his hair, bending down to kiss his forehead, "Not until you see your daughter."


	14. Chapter 14

**XIV**

_Medellin, Colombia_

_Metropolitan Police Headquarters_

Valencia Munoz watched the circus unfolding in front of her and stopped just short of rolling her eyes.

"_Qu'estas pensando?"_

Juan Dominguez had snuck up behind her. He was watching the crowd of reporters in front of them with the same cynical expression.

Detective Munoz frowned, still staring straight ahead into the throng of people. "I'll tell you what I think…I think he's enjoying this way too much." When she did meet Dominguez's gaze, her frown deepened. "I also think you or the Commissioner should get up there and tell the reporters that _you're_ the next-in the command, not that buffoon."

Dominguez snickered, "I'm not the one who got shot by Colombia's most wanted."

Valencia bit her tongue as she listened to the answers Luis Rigato was giving the reporters that had crowded into the police station for their impromptu press conference.

Fresh out of the hospital, Luis Rigato was the man of the hour. He was the hero who had tried to stop yet another corrupt cop. Except this time it was the one cop who was above reproach. There wasn't a soul in Medellin who wouldn't have staked their life on Roberto Sandoval's integrity.

To have the Assistant Commissioner of Police, the hallowed Roberto Sandoval, accused of breaking an inmate out of jail and shooting a fellow officer was a sensational story. And since it broke a few hours ago, it had thrown the police department into pandemonium

It _was_ a great story, Valencia had to admit, and the reporters in the room were having a field day with it. They reminded Valencia of vultures, feasting on a bigger heap of rotting flesh than they could ever have dreamed of.

"_I was suspicious from the moment we left La Catedral, when he insisted on taking her alone, which is against the law, of course." _

"_I felt something was wrong in the van from the way he kept looking at her." _

"_I only took my eyes off them for a second and that's when he brutally attacked me…" _

"_You cannot imagine my shock…to fight a man I respected so highly for so many years." _

"_Then he opened the doors of the transport van…" _

"_I had barely recovered from my shock, when I began to chase after them on foot…"_

"_I caught up to them and suddenly he was shooting to kill…I barely escaped with my life…" _

With every new question, and every flash from yet another camera, Valencia's anger increased.

Rigato often massaged his injured thigh during the questioning. He also leaned heavily on the cane he had used to walk into the room.

Yet Valencia knew the bullet had barely nicked him. If his injury had been more serious he wouldn't have been released from the hospital as soon as he was.

"Barely escaped with my life my a…"

"Don't…" she heard Dominguez's gentle reproach behind her. He knew she was a step away from cutting into Rigato's answers.

"That's bulls...," she hissed under her breath. "Roberto would never harm a hair on that louse's body. God knows he's had ample opportunity before."

"We don't know what happened," Dominguez tried to calm her.

"Exactly!" Valencia shot back. "Nobody knows what happened! Nobody except for Rigato, and everyone is accepting that man's word as the gospel truth!"

"There were dozens of witnesses on the road, who saw Sandoval jump out of the truck," Dominguez corrected her. "Not a single one of them saw him escape against his will. Or at gunpoint."

"Roberto couldn't have opened the door of the transport van like Rigato is suggesting," Valencia pointed out. "It's impossible. That mechanism is controlled by the driver. Lie number one."

"It's a simple slip," Dominguez corrected her. "The driver's already made a statement saying there was a technical failure."

"Right," Valencia shook her head in disbelief. "How convenient."

"I don't doubt for a second that he was paid off," Dominguez told her. "You and I both know that. We can also assume who paid him."

"No, we can't!" Two other officers stared at her when she raised her voice. She blushed, lowering her voice. "This is _Roberto_ we're talking about. Have you forgotten that already?" She nudged Dominguez away from the crowd. "There's no way in hell that the Roberto we know would break out an inmate and shoot another officer. No way."

Dominguez shrugged, "How well _do_ we know him? I don't know about you, but he never shared anything personal with me. We know he has a missing past that left behind a scarred face. That's it. He's mystery, Valencia. None of us have a clue how he got that scar." He looked at her, "Or do you? Did he tell you something he hasn't told anyone else?"

What did the damn scar have to do with anything, she wondered bitterly. What did his amnesia have to do with the man he'd been the last ten years? The man who had become her son's godfather. The man who'd taught them that integrity was worth more than drug money? The man who'd spent his entire career fighting against those who didn't feel the same way?

He was a man who looked after a little girl and her grandmother in the ghetto, because he hadn't been able to save the girl's father from the gang that claimed him. Roberto Sandoval had always shown her that courage meant standing by your convictions and facing the consequences of your actions.

"He doesn't have to tell me his secrets for me to know him well enough to know that what Rigato's saying doesn't add up." Valencia managed. "I do know two things; I know Roberto is somehow connected to Filomena Soltini and, according to the blood they found at the scene, I know that he's hurt!"

'I also know we have to find him before that bastard does,' she thought angrily, stopping herself from saying it aloud as she stared at Luis Rigato basking in the limelight.

"Are any of those reporters asking whether Rigato fired first?"

"Of course he fired first," Dominguez told her. "He was chasing a runaway convict."

'He was chasing his _boss_,' Valencia wanted to correct him. 'And _that_ was a fact that Rigato always resented.' "Since when are you his biggest fan?" was what she mumbled instead.

Juan Dominguez took off his wire-rimmed glasses, tiredly rubbing his eyes. It was going to be a long day. "I hate his guts as much as anyone, but I want you to see it the way the public is going to see it. Especially if they're getting their information from the reporters in this room."

"Great," Valencia sighed. "Everything Sandoval's done for this city over the last decade counts for nothing! People have judged Roberto before he's even had a chance to plead his case."

"If he _would_ come out and plead his case then maybe…"

"Maybe he's hurt!" Valencia hurled back. "Maybe he's not able to…"

"He tried to leave from Tres Montanas airfield."

"We haven't confirmed that," Valencia pointed out. All they had found was a credit card number that traced back to Sandoval for the rental of a twin-engine aircraft. That alone didn't mean he was ready to flee the country.

"Maybe you should try and find him," Dominguez said softly.

Valencia raised her eyebrows.

"Off the record," Dominguez added, his voice a whisper. "You know him better than anyone. Where would he go if he's hurt?"

Valencia slumped her shoulders. It had often bothered her that Juan Dominguez lacked Roberto's conviction. He didn't have Robert's ability to get things done. Nor did he have his strength and bullheadedness. On occasion it even bothered her that he lacked Roberto's arrogance.

Sometimes she outright questioned Roberto's choice to promote him to second-in-command in their department.

Yet every now and then she caught glimpses of a keen intelligence, fuelled by a quiet determination, and, in those moments, she realized why Roberto had made his choice.

"If only half of what Rigato said is true, then I really didn't know him at all…" she admitted reluctantly.

They began walking down the hallway to their cubicles, away from the madness of the press conference. "I want you to try and find him," Dominguez said softly, knowing no one would overhear them here. "Meanwhile I'm going to reign in Rigato and get a handle on where the Commissioner stands. Whatever lead you have, however small, I want you to bring it to me first, is that understood?"

Valencia gave him a meagre smile. "You bet." He was doing exactly what she had hoped he would. He was taking charge. Quietly. Without making it obvious to anyone but herself.

When he left, Valencia went to Roberto's office, settling down in the same well-worn chair where she'd often found him seated late at night, or early in the morning, when the rest of the building was empty.

She turned on his computer, knowing it wouldn't be long before its files would be gone through with a fine tooth comb.

"_Donde estas, Roberto_?" she said quietly, pushing a strand of dark brown hair behind her ears. "_Donde?_"

_Intercontinental Hotel _

_Medellin_

"What now?" Robin asked, stifling a yawn, as she dropped backwards into the queen-size bed.

"You rest," Mac told her, making no indication that he was planning on doing the same.

"What?"

"I said, 'you rest'," he repeated, pulling a clean shirt out of his suitcase. "We've been in transit for over fifteen hours. You're jet-lagged and exhausted. And in case you've forgotten, you're HIV positive."

"You're kidding, right? she asked, incredulously, "The last thing I want to do is nap."

"While you rest, I'm going to go the headquarters of the Medellin Police and see if I can get access to see Filomena Soltini."

"I want to come with you," Robin protested, sitting upright again, her earlier fatigue suddenly gone.

"Robin," Mac said, sitting down next to her, his voice as calm as always. "What's it going to look like if I enter the police station with my niece in tow? This has to look like it's official business."

"Then I'll wait outside until you're done…"

This time it was Mac who looked at her incredulously. "Are you crazy? This city has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. In the _world_, Robin! You're not going to be wandering around it, completely exhausted when you could be here, safe and sound."

"I have a right to see Mom!" she shot back, raising her voice. "You're treating me like a child!" It suddenly occured to Robin why Mac might have settled on this hotel from the long list on the wall at the airport. Nestled at the base of dark-green tropical hills, their hotel was a luxury resort, located far away from the grim realities of down-town Medellin, which Robin had only caught glimpses of on their drive here. 'Is that why you picked it?' she wondered. 'Because it was isolated enough so that I can't just take off on my own?'

"I know you're an adult, but I'm not debating this with you," he said with finalty, changing his shirt in front of her. He'd gone from travel weary and jet-lagged to crisp and sharp in a matter of seconds. "The last thing I need is to worry about you. Even Spencer Gooding is smart enough to know he needs some sleep before he can function."

The old Englishman had settled into a room next to theirs. Or so he said.

"_And you don't_?"

"I need to see what your mother's situation is before we can do anything further."

"I want to see her, Mac," Robin repeated. It sounded a bit like a plea this time. Not exactly what she was aiming for.

Nonetheless, it seemed to work better than her irritation, because Mac's determined features softened almost instantly. He turned around and put his hands on her shoulders, "I know you do, sweetheart. But I need to see local law enforcement first. Alone. As soon as I find out where exactly your mother is, and _how_ she is, then I'll make sure you see her."

"Fine," Robin mumbled. Some battles were worth fighting, others simply took too much effort for what they were worth. And, Mac did have a point. She _was_ exhausted and she yearned to sink back onto the wide, comfortable mattress she was sitting on. She also knew her next dose of the protocol was already a few hours late, following the change in time zones. "Will you call me as soon as you know anything?"

Mac bent down to kiss her on the cheek, "Of course."

"Be careful, okay?" she added, with a smirk. "I hear it's a dangerous city."

_Police Headquarters, Medellin_

Mac Scorpio walked confidently into the dull, unimposing granite building that housed the police headquarters of one of the world's most violent cities. There was no hesitancy in his gait as he walked down a crowded hallway, even as Spanish was the only language he heard resonating around him.

He walked like someone whose business it was to be here.

It was only when he passed a mirror that he stopped unexpectedly to straighten his tie, and frown at the tired, unshaven face that stared back at him.

He should have taken the time to shave his three-day stubble.

Except time was one thing he figured Anna didn't have.

Mac had hoped that Robin didn't notice the fear he had for her mother ever since she had told him the story that he still had trouble believing. Mac knew that Anna was strong. Resilient. But at the same time, he had a much clearer idea than his niece of what prisons in South America were like, and every time he thought about it, he hoped to god he wasn't too late.

'Damn it, Anna,' he cursed under his breath, ignoring the two uniformed officers that walked by and stared at him. 'Did you think for a moment what this insanity might do to Robin? Do you have any idea how much her heart would break if she lost you again?'

Mac had always liked his sister-in-law. Admired her strength. Her spirit. Anna had loved his brother with a passion that Mac often envied.

But just because he liked her, didn't mean he understood her. Or even trusted her.

Even now, after all these years he'd be lying if he said he didn't have moments of doubt about her allegiances. Moments when he doubted that, when she was kidnapped by Faison all those years ago, she hadn't been such an unwilling victim after all.

He chided himself for his doubts, mostly because he hated what Robbie would think if he knew he harboured them.

Robbie trusted Anna.

Trusted her enough to follow her to the other end of the world.

Straight to his death.

'Who are you now, Anna?' he wondered. 'Who are you and what the hell went through your mind when you decided to do what you did?' God knows he didn't get much of a glimpse of her current state of mind during their short reunion in Pine Valley. Anna had apparently spent years in the Canadian wilderness, her memory lost to amnesia for over a decade. When she did return to the land of the living, it wasn't to Port Charles nor to Robin, but to a town in Pennsylvania, where she met, and married a cardiologist with a chequered history and numerous run-ins with the law.

Mac knew because he had run a background check on David Hayward. One that almost made him wish he hadn't. With the exception of his brother, Anna seemed to have a certain affinity for men who held themselves above the law.

"I thought I knew you, Anna," he sighed. "But maybe I'm wrong on that count too."

Mac ignored the tired reflection that stared back at him, satisfied that at least his suit was crisp and his tie was straight.

'Anna is Robin's mother,' he reminded himself. 'That's all that matters right now.'

A uniformed officer stopped walking and looked at Mac, noticing him for that which he was: a stranger who didn't belong here, in spite of his confident air. The man said something in Spanish that Mac didn't understand.

Pulling out his Commissioners badge, Mac answered with two of the half dozen words he knew in Spanish.

"_Ingles, por favor."_

The man eyed him with slightly veiled irritation, saying something else that Mac didn't understand, before motioning Mac to follow him down the hallway.

There was something odd about the police station that Mac couldn't put a finger on. As if there was an invisible current of electricity running through the halls. Most of the officers he saw were animated, and there seemed to be a disproportionate amount of civilians inside the building, many of which had cameras and press IDs.

There was an obvious buzz in the police station.

Something was going on. Something big.

The officer led him through a pair of doors where he saw a female plain-clothes officer seated at a desk, engrossed in something she was reading on a computer screen.

The uniformed officer said something to the woman and she turned her head away from the screen to face Mac.

She stood up and when she did, their eyes were nearly level. Dark, wavy, shoulder length hair fell freely down to her shoulders and she wore a dark red blouse that seemed too elegant for her surroundings. Both combined, gave her a softness that didn't match the firmness of her grip when she shook his hand.

Her expression didn't offer the slightest hint of a welcome. Instead she eyed the badge he was still holding in his hand.

He showed it to her, saving her the trouble of asking to see it.

"I'm Commissioner Mac Scorpio, with the Port Charles Police Department, in New York."

"Detective Valencia Munoz. How I can help you, Commissioner?" This time Mac detected a hint of outright annoyance in her voice. Annoyance of having been disturbed from whatever she had been doing. Annoyed at the uniformed officer for having brought him here, especially if he had done so only because she was the closest English-speaking officer he could think of.

"I'm here because I need to see one of your prisoners. A woman by the name of Filomena Soltini."

At those words, Mac saw the irritation leave her face, replaced by disbelief.

"Filomena Soltini?" she repeated. "Is this a joke?" Her English was accented, but grammatically perfect.

Mac shook his head, puzzled by her reaction, suddenly fearing the worst for Anna. "No…no, why are you asking me that?"

"Do you not read newspapers? Or watch television, Commissioner Scorpio?"

"I don't understand…"

"I can see that you don't understand." An odd smile lifted Valencia Munoz's lips, "Filomena Soltini is not a prisoner here anymore. She is now one of our Most Wanted."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter XV**

_Medellin, Colombia,_

_Barrio Triste_

She woke up first, and opened her eyes slowly.

When they focused and took in her surroundings, they blinked twice.

She wasn't sure where she was, until she saw him. Lying next to her, on the lone mattress on the floor.

"Robert…?" Anna whispered, groaning when her back reminded her that she'd slept on the concrete floor.

Clumsily pushing herself off the floor, she saw that Robert's bloodied shirt was gone. A wool blanket covered his naked upper body, and a thick swath of white bandages was wrapped around his shoulder. Unused rolls of bandages, as well as a handful of latex gloves and other bloodied medical supplies, were lying next to his mattress and an IV tube ran from his arm up to a plastic pouch fastened onto a hook on the wall.

Someone had obviously been here last night to take care of his wound. Someone who knew what they were doing.

'Wouldn't I remember it?' she asked herself, puzzled and grateful at once as she watched Robert's chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm. 'Or was I that tired that I slept through it all?'

Or, worse, had they given her something that had knocked her out?

In a panic, she checked her arm for needle marks, finding instead that her wrist, the one that had been handcuffed to Robert, was neatly bandaged as well.

Anna exhaled and leaned against the wall, relieved.

Whoever had ministered to them was on their side. Or at least on Robert's.

Yet they didn't stick around to see the results.

"Robert…" she whispered a second time, moving a hand to his chest.

He mumbled something, creasing his lips into a frown as he turned his head away from her.

The gesture made her smile, "That's okay. It's all I wanted. A sign of life."

He was no longer unconscious. Merely asleep. "Good," she thought. He needed rest to heal.

Glancing around the room, Anna became aware of its stark silence. Gone were the old woman and the child who had been here yesterday.

Part of her wanted to get up and head outside, but then she remembered last night's walk through the Barrio, and she decided that venturing out on her own was probably asking for trouble.

'_More_ trouble,' she corrected herself.

Besides, she couldn't risk leaving Robert alone. Who would protect him if she did?

She saw that Robert's gun was still in his holster, lying on the floor next to him.

Anna reached over his sleeping body to grab it, clutching it in her hand, before lying back down on the floor.

She realized that she was starving and wondered whether there was any food left on the wood-burning stove that stood in the corner of the room.

But that would require the effort of getting up.

Anna stared at Robert's face, tilted sideways towards her. His scar ran across his lower cheek and she wanted to run her index finger along it, as if by tracing it, she might figure out how it got there.

Was it the tanker explosion?

She resisted, afraid she might wake him if she did. Instead Anna rested one of her hands on his arm, amazed, as she was each time she took a second to reflect, that, after all these years, Robert was here. _Her Robert_. Lying here, next to her.

Her other hand clasped his gun

Knowing it was loaded reassured her. She let her eyes close. There was nothing she could do right now.

So she fell back asleep.

_Medellin Police Headquarters, Medellin_

Valencia Munoz watched the American's reaction with interest.

He really, truly had no idea that the prisoner he had come to see had broken out of jail with the help of Medellin's very own Assistant Commissioner of Police.

So much for the Americans' advanced communications networks. Maybe if they picked up a couple of tabloid newspapers every now and then, they'd _really_ stay on top of things.

'But that would require you to speak the local language, wouldn't it?' she thought cynically. She wondered how far she'd get if she walked into the police station of the New York town he was from and demanded a Spanish speaking officer to help her out.

Valencia didn't enjoy speaking English, because she knew she struggled with it and it didn't sit well with her need to excel at whatever she tackled. Roberto had insisted she learn the language years ago, when they first met and worked Narcotics together. It was typical of him, to want push his officers beyond their comfort zones. To see potential in them that they might not have seen themselves. Whenever a liaison officer was needed in Miami, he had sent Valencia to improve on the language courses he made her take in Medellin, blissfully unaware that in Miami she could easily get by on Spanish alone.

"Now that I have answered your question, you can answer mine," Valencia prompted him, impatiently. "Why did you come here to see Filomena Soltini? What do you know about this woman?"

"I…I can't divulge the details. It's confidential."

He seemed shaken, his handsome face markedly upset at the news she'd just given him.

"Confidential?" she asked, incredulous. "We have been able to find out nothing about this woman, and now she has destroyed the reputation of one of our best police officers and you come here and you say it is _confidential_?" She straightened her shoulders, "If you like I can go to my boss and he will call _your_ boss…and I will find out exactly why you are here to see Filomena Soltini, and what she means to your police department, but I would appreciate it if you would save me the trouble."

"I'm sorry…" he replied still obviously shaken by the news. "I can't tell you that. Not yet."

"Not 'yet'?" she raised her eyebrows. "You come in here and ask to see one of our prisoners, but you cannot give us the courtesy to tell us why?"

"I'm sorry…it's complicated."

He sounded almost like he meant it, but Valencia didn't care. Her patience was wearing thin. This was the first time she had heard anyone mention the name Filomena Soltini with any sort of recognition and from one minute to the next he was as tight lipped as a clam.

He also looked like he was contemplating a dozen things all at once. And, oddly enough, the man's face, concentrated in thought, suddenly reminded her of Roberto.

"Well, then I am sorry too," she snapped. "If you will excuse me. I am very busy."

Valencia didn't have time to play games.

She would speak to Dominguez first chance she got and have him call the Port Charles police department. He would ask for whomever it was that this Commissioner answered to, in the hopes of finding out anything more about Filomena Soltini.

For the first time since that woman's arrest they had _something_.

'I'll find out why you're not sharing what you know,' Valencia thought, taking a long look at the American. If she knew one thing, it was that nothing ever came easily. She was used to fighting tooth and nail. It was a constant battle just to be considered half as good as her male peers.

"I'm sorry…" he mumbled again. He had a handsome, tired face and looking at it almost made Valencia believe that he was. Sorry.

Not that that was worth much to her at the moment.

Her eyes followed him as he walked away from her and when she too returned to her office the first thing she did was leave a message for Dominguez, telling him he needed to call the Port Charles Police.

"And now what?" she asked herself, forcing herself to think. Forcing herself to remember some of the many conversations she had with Roberto, hoping they might give her a clue as to where he would go if he were in trouble.

It wasn't until several hours later when her inability to get a hold of Dominguez, suddenly gave her an idea.

She remembered discussing a particularly frustrating case with Roberto.

_"Whenever I think my life gets too difficult to handle, I think of Alicia…"_

Valencia's mind raced. It was a crazy, unlikely possibility.

But a possibility nonetheless.

She grabbed her purse and ran out of the police station.

_Barrio Triste, Medellin _

A deep, steady throb in his shoulder woke him up. It abruptly brought him back in time to yesterday.

To getting shot on the hillside. And making the decision to come here. Then only vaguely remembering _how_ he came here.

Roberto Sandoval turned his head sideways and saw the thick bandage that covered his shoulder.

Looking at it made him realize that coming here had been the right decision.

He twisted his body enough so that he could pull himself up on his good arm. When he felt it move freely, without the weight that had tugged at it all day long yesterday, he remembered something else: the handcuffs.

_"Oh no…"_

With Anna gone he would have no idea how to find his daughter.

None.

She would be out of his grasp forever.

Roberto twisted around too fast, sending a sharp wave of pain through his shoulder.

It was then that he saw her lying asleep next to him.

Relief washed over him. Roberto stared at her, baffled as to why, in his profound relief, he suddenly felt somehow _responsible_ for her. Maybe it was the purplish colour around her bruised eye; a guilty reminder of the prison initiation she went through because of his negligence. Or maybe it was because, asleep, she looked small and fragile.

She was lying on her stomach, her long brown hair draped over one side of her face. Her right hand rested on the floor next to her face, clasping his handgun in her sleep.

"Oh, I don't think so, Anna…" he mumbled, groaning at the effort it took for him to reach for the weapon.

The noise woke her and she swung up onto her knees with lightning speed, grabbing the weapon with both hands now, aiming it squarely at his forehead.

Roberto gasped and drew back in shock, tumbling back down onto the mattress. "What the hell…?"

_"Robert!"_

She lowered the gun as quickly as she had raised it, her shoulders slumping in relief. "Jesus Christ, don't ever do that again." Her breath came in gasps, "Wasn't getting shot once enough for you?"

Roberto's heart pounded. "Yeah, it was, thanks."

"I could've killed you just now."

"Right. You could have." Roberto scowled, "Killed me, for trying to get my gun back."

"For scaring the hell out of me," she corrected him, her dark eyes angry, until they narrowed their focus onto his shoulder. "How _are _you feeling?"

"Like a man who just escaped death for the second time in two days." He noticed too, that unlike Spanish, English rolled off his tongue with remarkable ease, as though he'd spoken it every day for the last ten years.

Anna rolled her eyes and a thick strand of hair fell over her face again. It framed her irritation perfectly and it made him realize for the first time why his eyes often rested on her longer than he intended. In spite of the black eye and the lack of make-up, she _was _captivating. Beautiful even.

"I feel like I got hit by a truck, " he admitted.

Anna's face softened, "You look much better than yesterday."

"What happened to the handcuffs?" he demanded.

"I undid them."

"I can see that."

"The keys were in your pocket," she told him. "You were unconscious when I got them."

"So you helped yourself to them, the same way you helped yourself to my gun?"

"Here." She tossed the handgun onto the mattress, nearly hitting him with it. "Keep your damn gun if you can't stand to trust me with it."

Roberto grabbed it and stuck it back into its holster, surprised at how much effort that small movement took. Maybe he had lost more blood than he thought. "Thanks…" he mumbled, sinking back onto the mattress when the room started to spin around him.

He looked up at Anna. Her eyes betrayed her tone of indifference and let him know he'd hurt her. Again.

'Why is it that I can read you so easily?' he wondered.

"I'm surprised you're still here," he told her.

"Right," she bit her lip, and pulled up her knees as she leaned against the wall. "Of course you are."

"But…" he added. "I'm glad."

"Because without me you lose your daughter again."

"Will you tell me where she is?"

"And make myself redundant to you?"

"We're on the run with the entire Medellin police force after us. If anything happens to you…" he tried to explain.

"Right..."

"If anything happens to you," he persisted. "I lose her forever because you've told me nothing more than her first name."

Anna said nothing but, as usual, her eyes revealed what her silence left unsaid.

"Look, I don't _want_ anything to happen to you, Anna," he tried to explain. It was the truth, he realized. In spite of everything, he didn't want her hurt, contrary to what she might believe. "I'll do whatever I can to make sure nothing does. If that's worth anything."

"If I tell you where to find Robin, you can dump me here and do the rest of this on your own. I'm not an idiot, Robert."

That much he had figured out already. Now if only she would stop calling him Robert. "We started this together," he promised. "We're going to end it together."

This time the scepticism came from her. "And I should trust you because…?"

"Because…" Roberto sighed, exhausted from the efforts of the conversation. He grabbed the handgun from his holster and handed it back to her, "Because I'm going to do the same. Here. Take it."

"No, thanks."

"Oh for god's sake…in my current state I'm useless with it and you've already proven you're a good shot." Roberto regretted the cynicism that he couldn't keep out of his voice, almost as soon as he said it. Much as he hated what she did, who knows where they'd be now if she hadn't shot Rigato. "Anna…I..." he started, but her icy stare cut him off.

"Don't bother with an apology you don't mean," she shot back. She clasped the gun tightly, with a frown that let him know she was merely humouring an injured man. That she knew all too well that he didn't trust her.

If they really had been married, how in the world had they ever survived as a couple, Roberto wondered. 'Was it always like _this_? Did we constantly push each other's buttons?' And _why_ did that push-and-pull feel so oddly_, comfortingly_ familiar?

Even so, the last thing he had the energy for was yet another argument with her. He was so tired he thought he might drift back into oblivion. Only the pain in his shoulder kept him awake. And being awake was all the incentive Anna needed to start bombarding him with questions.

She wanted to know where they were. Who the old woman and the child were. Why had he chosen to come here of all places. In turn, Roberto told her what she wanted to know. He told her how he had failed to bring down the drug lord whose men had killed the little girl's mother. How he had felt responsible for Alicia. That he paid her school fees and had become a guardian of sorts for her.

That he had come here because it was the last place he expected his men to look. Loyalty meant something here and Alicia's family would be the last people who would rat them out to the police.

"I made Gabriel swear to look after Alicia and her grandmother, and in exchange there were certain things I turned a blind eye to…"

"Really?" Anna raised an eyebrow in surprise, as if she knew how much that deal had cost his conscience. "That's a quite a compromise for you."

"It is. Some compromises do come with a heavy price."

"Where are they now?" Anna asked. "Alicia and her grandmother?"

"Gabriel probably moved them to keep them out of harm's way…"

"We can't stay here long, can we?"

Roberto shook his head. "No."

She nodded her head in understanding.

"I've answered your questions," he told her, taken aback at how much energy it took just to have a conversation. "Will you answer some of mine?"

"I can try."

"Tell me about Robin. How old is she? What does she look like and what does she do? Does she ever talk about her father? And what about her mother?"

"She's in her early twenties," Anna returned his smile. "She's beautiful. She has your grin, I mean, your smile…you know." She blushed, "She's a medical student."

"A medical student?" Pride suddenly swelled his heart. He had a daughter, who was going to be a doctor. A beautiful young woman, with_ his _smile. Maybe it was all worth it. This whole unfathomable mess they were in.

"Her aunt's a doctor too," Anna explained. "I'd credit those genes."

"_My_ sister…?"

Anna shook her head, "Her mother's sister."

"So you're in touch with Robin?"

Anna nodded, "Yes."

"What about her mother?" Roberto pressed, no longer feeling the fatigue that had threatened to overwhelm him a few minutes ago.

Anna's eyes avoided his. "Her mother was your first wife. She is…she _was _a Police Chief, like you."

"Is she…?"

"She's gone," Anna cut him off abruptly. A sudden iciness in her voice that told him he wouldn't get any more than that. Not now, anyway. Who knew how Robin's mother and Anna had known each other, although they must have had a relationship of sorts if Robin was still close to Anna. Maybe Anna had helped raise her?

He wanted to ask her more. About the boat explosion. What exactly they had been doing there before it happened.

How they had met. Why he had gone after her.

God, there were still so many endless questions; he didn't know where to begin.

He was about to ask something else, but then the door of the apartment flung open and Roberto saw Anna raise his handgun in its direction.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter XVI**

_Intercontinental Hotel_

_Medellin, Colombia_

"What do you mean he checked out?" Robin asked the front desk agent a second time.

"He checked out three hours ago," the woman repeated in perfect English.

"Great," Robin mumbled under her breath. "I take a nap, and I lose Spencer Gooding." All the renewed energy she had after her much needed rest was slipping away from her in the span of seconds.

"Ms. Scorpio," the woman added, reaching over the check-in counter to hand Robin an envelope. "He asked me to give this to you."

Robin took it in stunned silence, ripping it open on the spot. A single sheet of hotel stationary was folded inside it.

_With your uncle here there is nothing else for me to do. I should have stayed behind in Paris. Good-bye, Robin. Please know that I want nothing more than your mother's safe return._

"Nice," she mumbled in disbelief. "Then again, why am I surprised that team work is a totally inconceivable idea for you."

'What now?' she wondered, tugging a strand of hair behind her ear, walking away from the reception and sinking into one of the plush lobby sofas.

She didn't have time to think of an answer when she spotted Mac entering the lobby.

His expression was grim and he looked even more exhausted than the last time she saw him.

She jumped up and walked towards him.

"We have a problem, Mac…" she started.

"Yeah," he nodded, barely meeting her eyes. "We do."

_Barrio Triste_

"It's okay, Anna," Robert told her as soon as the first man stepped into the apartment. "Put the gun down."

Anna lowered it, but kept her hands clasped tightly around it.

She felt Robert's hand on her forearm.

"I said it's okay," he repeated. "Put the gun _away_."

The two men entering the room looked at her with barely masked hostility. If they were Robert's friends, they made no qualms about letting her know they weren't hers. 'Then again, if someone greeted me by pointing a gun in my face, I probably wouldn't respond with 'good morning,' either.'

She vaguely recognized one of the men from last night. He was one of the two young men who had spotted them walking through the Barrio and ended up bringing Robert here.

The other man was older and his face was harsh. Angular. He had the expression of someone who'd seen more than he cared to and was now immune to anything else he might still witness.

He held a black leather bag in one hand. A medical bag.

He bent down to look at Robert's shoulder and proceeded to change its dressing while the younger man spoke to Robert. He sounded anxious.

Anna watched them in silence, waiting for them to finish what they were doing. Wincing when she caught sight of the ghastly flesh wound on Robert's shoulder.

When he finished talking to Robert, the younger man handed her a paper bag and Anna opened it to find a sandwich and a can of soda inside. Thanking him with the one word of Spanish she knew, Anna bit into the sandwich greedily. The bread was dry and stale, but she was so hungry she didn't care.

The older man made Robert swallow some pills, before getting up to pack his medical bag, throwing the dirty bandages into a plastic bag.

When they were done, the two men left the apartment as quickly as they entered it, without giving her so much as a second glance.

Anna waited until the door closed behind them before looking at Robert, "What did they say?"

Robert frowned, leaning against the wall behind him. "Bad news," he told her. "Since our escape yesterday, we shot to the top of Colombia's most wanted list."

"That doesn't surprise me. What next?"

"We have to get out of Colombia," Robert told her. "The sooner the better."

"Did he…say anything about the cop I shot?"

"Rigato is fine. Apparently the bullet barely nicked him and now the press is trying to make a martyr out of him. It looks like he's spearheading the efforts to catch me." A lop-sided smile raised Robert's lips, "That might actually work to our advantage. He's a lousy cop."

A sigh of relief lowered her shoulders. Lousy cop or not, she was grateful he'd escaped with his life. Killing an officer had never been her intention. "How are we going to get out of Colombia?"

"Gabriel will help us get out of the city and into the mountains. From there we walk into Panama."

"_Walk_?" Anna raised her eyebrows.

"It's a densely forested area of hills and limited roads. As well as…"

"We're going to _walk_ into Panama?" Anna repeated, not sure she understood.

"The area's also full of leftist guerrilla camps hiding out from the Colombian army. That is, when they're not busy waging a civil war and creating thousands of refugees that escape across the border by walking through the hills for days at a time."

"Oh that's…just great," Anna mumbled. "Were your friends _trying_ to come up with the most dangerous way to get us out of here?"

"It's the least dangerous," he corrected her. "Besides, it's Plan B," Robert reminded her, tight-lipped. "Plan A already went down the drain."

"You can barely stand up! How on earth are you going to walk across guerrilla-filled mountains into another country?"

"I said 'hills' didn't I?"

"You didn't answer my question!"

Robert rolled his eyes, "The doc says we should wait at least 24 hours before heading out. That I'm not much use before then."

"Right," Anna mumbled sarcastically. "By _then_ your bullet wound will have healed."

"Look, it doesn't matter. The longer we wait the greater our risk of being captured," he reminded her. "If you land back in jail this time, what happened to you last time at La Catedral will seem like a picnic by comparison."

Anna shuddered. "I'll kill myself first."

Robert frowned. "All we have to do is make it across the border. I refuse to believe we can't pull that off."

"Well…" she sighed. "We did always make a good team."

"Did we?" His eyes met hers with same heartbreaking curiosity they did each time he asked her about the past. "Tell me more…"

'Is it really possible that the only connection to your old life are _my_ memories?' she wondered.

Her eyes avoided his and she didn't answer the question. Instead, she eyed the bowl of food the two men had left behind for Robert. Unlike her sandwich, his dish looked almost appetizing. It was a mixture of rice and beans and chicken. Hearty fare that would help him gain his strength back.

"Eat first," she told him. "If you really plan on hiking across mountains, you need a lot more energy than you have now."

"Hills, Anna. _Hills_."

_Intercontinental Hotel_

_Medellin_

They were back in Mac's hotel room and Robin shook her head in disbelief at what she was hearing.

"Mac, that's crazy!" Robin shot back, "Mom would never take an officer hostage! Not unless...no, there's no way...she would _never_!"

Mac's exhaustion was mixed with frustration now, so much so that Robin could see it written all over his tired face.

"Look, sweetheart, a few weeks ago, I would've bet my life that your mother would never go back to a life of crime. _But here we are!"_

"Hey, we still don't know why Mom did what she did," Robin shot back. "And now some cop tells you this crazy story, and you buy it just like that?"

"Why would a police officer lie to me? Apparently this 'crazy story' is all over the papers, Robin!"

"Did you buy one of those papers on your way back here?"

"Robin…what does…?" Mac narrowed his brows.

"I'm serious!" She interrupted him. "_Did you_? I'd like to see exactly what they're saying about Mom!"

"There's no reason in the world that officer would lie to me knowing I could verify…"

"Let's then. Let's verify this story right now!"

Before he could utter another word, Robin grabbed her room key and headed for the door.

"Robin, where are you…"

"To the hotel's gift shop. I'm sure they have an English newspaper there."

Her uncle promptly followed her out the door, an action that elicited another angry glare from her. "I don't need an escort to take an elevator down to the lobby! Or do you not trust me anymore either?"

Her uncle gave her a look of such disbelief that it made Robin feel instantly guilty.

Why was she _this_ defensive when it came to her mother? After everything she had done in the last couple of weeks, Mac had every right to question her mother's state of mind. It's not as though Robin didn't have her own doubts and questions.

'But I'd never voice them out loud…' she thought, tightening her lips. No matter what had happened, her mother was the only parent she had left. She'd be damned if she let Mac's reasoning penetrate a defensiveness which she knew was now bordering on blind, stubborn loyalty.

They entered the elevator together and Robin felt her anger surge, in spite of her guilt.

Why did he insist on treating her like a child that couldn't be left unattended? Like someone who constantly needed protection? Wasn't she an adult, who had lived on her own in Paris for well over a year now?

There were times, like now, when Mac was more overprotective than her father had been. Except he wasn't. Her father.

It was a petty, undeserving resentment that she felt right now, one more befitting of a sullen, petulant teenager than the levelheaded woman she was. Thoughts that made Robin guilty for just thinking them. Mac had more than _earned_ his parental rights over her.

He had probably spent more time raising her than her father did.

Yet she couldn't help what she felt.

She knew that if Mac would ever ask her to choose between him and her mother, he wouldn't stand a chance. Whether or not her choice was fair was irrelevant.

"What were you going to say before I told you about your mother?" Mac asked her, breaking the thick, uncomfortable silence that hung in the air.

"What?" Robin asked, surprised to be pulled out of her angry train of thought.

"You said we had a problem."

Robin frowned. Obviously _that_ was the understatement of the day. "Spencer," she told him. "Spencer Gooding checked out and left."

"Oh..."

The news didn't seem to bother her uncle in the slightest. Or maybe at this point he was simply too tired to care.

"It's probably for the best," Mac pointed out as the elevator doors opened. "He obviously had no helpful connections here, and keeping an eye on him would have been more work than it was worth. He should have stayed behind in Paris to start."

'Except if it wasn't for Spencer we'd have no idea Mom was even here…'

Together with Mac, Robin walked into the small lobby gift shop and picked up the first English language newspaper she saw.

Her eyes focused on the photo that was on the cover.

And seeing it made her drop the paper to the floor.

Her hands started to shake.

"Robin, what is it?" Mac looked at her with concern.

"This is not possible…it's not…this is _not_ possible…"

Robin held on to the first counter she saw, afraid her knees too might give out on her.

She felt Mac's arms around her, gently motioning her to sit down. He looked at her, full of concern.

Mac didn't understand.

Not until he glanced downward and his eyes caught a glimpse of the newspaper lying on the floor.

And he saw his brother's face staring back at him.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter XVII**

_Medellin, Colombia_

_Barrio Triste_

'Why don't you just tell him she's your daughter?' Anna asked herself, staring at the unadorned wall straight ahead of her.

A yellowed, unframed photo of a beautiful young woman was pinned halfway up and made for the only decoration in the apartment. Anna suspected the woman in the photo was the young girl's mother. It was the only thing that caught her eye, aside from the grey mouse that periodically poked its head out of a hole at the base of that same wall.

'If we make it out of here, he'll find out soon enough. Then he'll despise you a little more for adding one more lie to the pile.'

The mouse ventured a few steps away from its hole. But then it dashed back in, as soon Anna moved a hand through her hair. 'Because…you want to know how he sees you, without knowing about Robin.' Anna silently answered her own question. 'Because maybe, just for once, you want him to look at you and see only Anna. Not the mother of his child. Just Anna.'

Robin had always been their strongest link. The one unbreakable bond that had made them best friends long before they became lovers again.

'If it wasn't for Robin would you have fallen in love with me again?'

Anna cringed. 'Stop it,' she scolded herself. 'Self-pity is one thing you were never very good at. Guilt maybe, but not self-pity. If that was your game, you'd have told him the day you saw him in that godforsaken prison.'

Or maybe her reason was less complicated than that. After all, once you told a lie, it was always easier to continue lying, rather than work out ways to rectify it.

Anna stretched her arms in a yawn and stared at Robert, fast asleep again, next to her. He hadn't lasted long after eating half a meal and taking two of the pills the doctor had left behind. On the one hand she was grateful he lacked the energy for any more questions. On the other, it worried her that he was exhausted, weak and probably in more pain than he admitted.

'How in the world are you going to travel to the jungle and walk across mountains tomorrow?' she wondered, idly watching the rise and fall of his breathing.

"You and me both," she whispered with a sigh. She was sore all over and she still couldn't shake the headache that had accompanied her since the prison brawl that had nearly cost her life. Recovering from fights and narrow escapes seemed to take a lot longer now than it did two decades ago.

'Some aspirin and a hot bath…what I wouldn't give for that right now...' A couple of weeks ago, those were two simple things she'd have taken for granted, but here, in a one-room ghetto apartment with no running water it was a tall order.

'And Robin,' she added subconsciously. 'I could really use hearing your voice right now, sweetheart. I could even use your calm, rational, self, telling me what an idiot I was for taking Spencer's mask here. '

She had to find a way to get a hold of Robin before they left Medellin. One of Robert's friends had to have a phone where she could leave her daughter a message.

Robin would be going out of her mind with worry by now.

'What exactly are you going to tell her?' Anna asked herself. _'I'm okay, honey. I've managed to get out of the Colombian jail I was in. I'll be even better once I shake the Medellin Police, walk across into Panama and reclaim my own identity…oh, and did I mention I found your father?'_

"What a mess…" she mumbled aloud, getting up to stretch her legs.

She hadn't taken two steps before she heard a deafening noise coming from the door of the apartment.

Three people crashed into the room.

A woman, held down by two men was shoved violently onto the floor.

Without a moment's hesitation, Anna grabbed Robert's gun and aimed it towards all three of them.

_Intercontinental Hotel, Medellin_

Seeing the photo, Mac could now understand Robin's reaction.

In fact, his own knees felt weak, as he guided his niece towards a lounge chair in the lobby.

He didn't realize that they had taken the newspaper out of the gift shop, and that the shopkeeper was coming after him for forgetting to pay.

"Here," he said absentmindedly, handing the woman the first bill he found in his pocket, not bothering to look at the denomination. "Take it."

Robin was sitting down, cradling the newspaper in her lap, unable to tear her eyes off the cover photo.

"Am I going crazy, Mac?" she asked, her voice not louder than a whisper. "Am I going crazy or are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

Mac sat down next to her, staring at the photo.

It was Robert.

Not Robert as he had been when he died over a decade ago. But Robert as he would look like _now_.

_If he were alive_.

"How is this possible, Mac?" Robin asked him. Her face was a ghostly white and her index finger traced and retraced the photograph on the newspaper. Slowly and tenderly she moved it along the outline of her father's face, tears collecting at the rim of her eyes. "It's Dad…"

"It looks a lot like…"

"No, Mac…it _is_ Dad!"

Mac picked up the paper with unsteady hands, forcing himself to read the words in the article. Forcing his eyes to tear themselves away from the photo of his brother.

'It's not Robert,' he chided himself. 'It's someone who looks astonishingly similarto him. That's all. A _doppelganger_. They say we all have one.'

He started reading.

…_shocking disgrace for the Medellin Police, as Assistant Commissioner of Police Roberto Sandoval aided in the escape of a recently interred La Catedral prisoner. _

…_shot trying to contain his former boss was Detective Luis Rigato, who is spearheading efforts to find Sandoval with a reward of five million Pesos for any information leading to the former Assistant Commissioner's arrest... _

Mac turned the page only to find another photo of Robert inside.

Next to a mug shot of Anna.

"Mac, how…how is that possible. That this man is Dad?"

Mac's tired brain tried to make connections where none made sense.

If, _if_, this man, this Police Commissioner, was somehow Robert, then why break Anna out of jail? Why not go through legal channels to help her? And why didn't Anna make any efforts to contact Robin? Or any friend or family member for that matter?

"Robin…that man isn't Robbie. It isn't possible."

"Look at the picture, Mac!"

"I've looked at it and, yeah, it's an incredible resemblance but…"

"It's more than a resemblance!"

"Robin," he tried to reason. _"Your father is dead!"_

She slammed the paper down in front of him, _"Did you look at the picture?!"_

A young couple passed them by, staring at them. When Robin turned her head, she saw several hotel staff members following their argument with curiosity, turning their heads only when her eyes caught theirs.

"We shouldn't have this discussion here," Mac told her, lowering his voice.

Robin didn't care who looked at them. She was going to get through to her bull-headed uncle right here and now, while he was still awake enough to listen to her reasoning. "Is it that crazy to think that if Mom survived that tanker explosion, maybe Dad did as well?"

"_Then why wouldn't he have contacted us?"_ Mac hissed, in a whisper. "After all these years?"

"Maybe he couldn't remember us."

Mac ran a hand along his forehead, exasperated. "This is all a little too much for me right now."

"You're beyond exhausted," Robin agreed, her voice softening. "You need sleep."

"No…I need to know who this Roberto Sandoval is."

Robin gave him a push towards the hotel elevators. "Let _me_ do some digging this time, while you rest. Long enough, so that when you wake up again you can think straight again."

Mac looked at her incredulously, "What do you think you're going to do? Traipse around Medellin by yourself?"

Robin rolled her eyes and pointed towards the hotel's Business Centre. "I'm going to search on-line. I'm going to see what I can find out about Robert Sandoval, and when I'm done I'll come and wake you." Adrenaline pumped through her veins. The photo had jarred her so thoroughly that her hands were still shaking, while her heart raced. Sitting down at a computer would give her enough focus to calm down until the possibility of her father being alive hit her a second time.

She wiped a tear from her eyes, "Just for once, trust me, okay?"

"I do, trust you." Mac met her eyes with a lop-sided smile. "Fine. Maybe I'll have a nap and wake up to find out this is all a dream."

Robin reached up to hug him, "Don't say that, Mac. Please. This is too amazing to not be real."

She watched him disappear as the elevator door closed in front of her.

Her father might be alive.

Another tear welled up to pool at the bottom of her eye, entirely against her will, and Robin wiped it away, embarrassed to see a hotel bellman staring at her.

'Please,' she whispered to no one, 'Please, please… let it be real.'

_Barrio Triste, _

_Medellin _

"Don't move!" Anna yelled, jumping up onto her feet.

The two men were pinning the woman down on the bare floor, but in spite of their obvious strength, she was putting up a good fight. The three of them tussled on the floor.

It was Robert who yelled something at the two men in Spanish. Whatever he said, it made them release the woman. The exchanged a short, rapid-fire conversation with Robert, before raising their arms into the air and leaving the apartment, shutting the door behind them.

Anna wondered if they were stationed outside the door. Bodyguards to keep out intruders.

Meanwhile, the woman got up, and wiped the dust off her dress pants and stared angrily at Robert, hissing something that sounded unmistakeably like an accusation. Bitterness, disappointment and anger were written all over her striking face.

Anna wished she understood enough Spanish to follow what they were saying.

As if reading her mind, Robert said something to the woman that surprised her. "Will you speak English, please. I want Anna to know what we're saying. Anna, this is Detective Valencia Munoz…my colleague…and friend."

"_Anna?"_ Detective Munoz looked at her with as much anger as she did at Robert.

"Her name isn't Filomena Soltini."

"That much I figured out myself," she spat back. "What I cannot figure out is _you_, Roberto." Her English was accented but good.

"Let me explain…"

"You cannot begin to explain this!" Valencia's shouted. Her hands rested on her hips, accentuating her anger. "I thought I knew you, Roberto!"

"I didn't know _myself_," he said softly. "I've never known who I really was. You knew that, Valencia."

"And this woman, _she _knows you?"

"She was my wife."

Genuine shock fell over the woman's face and Anna frowned as she mumbled something in Spanish.

"_No lo creo_…"

"It's true," Robert told her.

"Como? _How?"_ Valencia insisted. "How do you know it is true if you cannot remember?"

"I knew we had a connection the day I first saw her," Robert explained, with a patience that surprised Anna.

It was obvious that Robert cared whether this woman believed him. Cared what she thought about his recent actions.

"When I met her in the interrogation room," Robert told her. "Anna collapsed and when I held her in my arms, I _knew_…"

The admission shocked Anna. To her face Robert had questioned every thing she had told him, including her status as his ex-wife. 'But I should have known that he would never have helped me if his own instincts hadn't confirmed my words…maybe Robert is wrong, maybe his memory isn't completely lost…'

Valencia Munoz turned towards her, narrowing her brows. "So Roberto was your husband and the first thing you do after seeing him again after all these years, is ask him to break you out of prison and risk his life for you?"

'Nice,' Anna thought, biting her tongue. She could almost tolerate this woman's bluntness only because it seemed to be rooted in concern for Robert. "It's not quite that simple," Anna told her.

"Where the hell were you all these years?"

"I don't think that's any of your business."

"I think it's my business if you coming back turns my boss into one of Colombia's Most Wanted!" Valencia glared at her. "_Entonces_…you want to tell me what jail you were in while your husband was trying to regain his past? Do you have any idea how much he tried to remem…"

"Stop it," Robert cut in. "Anna is right. She doesn't owe you an explanation."

Robert's gaze drifted between her and the Colombian woman, and for the first time since meeting him Anna realized it was one question Robert hadn't yet asked her.

_Did you never look for me, all these years?_

"I think she does. But most of all, she owes _you _an explanation," Valencia added, turning back to Robert.

"Robert and I were both presumed dead, after a tanker explosion off the coast of Venezuela," Anna explained. "It was a miracle that I survived and I had no reason to believe my husband did as well." She didn't add that she too couldn't have remembered him if she tried.

"So you couldn't remember her, and you…" Valencia said, looking at Anna. "You thought he was dead. How convenient. Roberto, did you think that maybe…"

Anger rose in Anna's throat when she realized what Valencia was hinting at. "I didn't set the explosion and try to kill him, if that's what you're suggesting."

"I'm a cop," Valencia told her, unapologetically. "Forgive me if I don't buy everything that comes from the mouth of criminals. That's what this is isn't it? It's _your_ story, Anna. A story that Roberto cannot verify because he cannot remember. But he really wants to believe it because he wants so much to know the past and…"

"Val, stop it," Robert interrupted again. "Don't talk about me like I'm a clueless idiot."

Anna saw the woman's face flush in defensive anger.

"I'm scared for you, boss," she shot back. "I'm_ really_ scared for you. The entire police force is after you…"

Robert managed a smirk, "Yet you're the one who found me. I did teach you well."

Valencia frowned, "This is not funny, Roberto."

"It's not. But admitting I'm terrified too isn't going to help, is it?"

"What now, boss?" Valencia's frown deepened. "What happens now?"

"Remember that morning when you came into my office," he asked her. "I told you that I had a chance to find out about my past but that finding out came with a price. That I might have to compromise who I am to find out who I was?"

"I remember…" A hand went to her forehead in realization of what his words had meant that morning. "Oh god, if only knew that this is what you were trying to tell…"

"You told me then you trusted me to make the right decision."

"I had no idea that _this_…"

"Val, this isn't about me breaking my ex-wife out of jail. It's about seeing my daughter."

Valencia stared at him in shock, "Your _daughter_? You have a daughter?" She swivelled around to Anna, "_Your_ daughter?"

"No," Robert answered for her. "_My_ daughter. Anna knows her. That was the deal we made. That I would get her out of La Catedral and she would take me to my daughter."

"Roberto do you seriously _believe_ all this…?"

"Yes," Robert's lips were tight. "Yes, I do."

Anna saw the perspiration that was collecting at the rim of his hairline. This interrogation was exhausting him and Anna was ready to let Valencia know it. The question of what this woman would do with the knowledge of his whereabouts weighed on her and Anna debated what exactly she would do to stop her if the need arose. Valencia Munoz was taller and bigger than her, and judging from the way she had defended herself against the two men, Anna had no doubts she'd put up a good fight.

'Maybe, in my current state, I'm delusional to think I stand a chance at all,' Anna thought.

'We're both armed,' Anna reasoned, until she caught a glimpse of Valencia's holster and noticed it was empty. The men who had tackled her before she came in had to have removed it. A smile raised the corner of her lips, 'Advantage Anna.'

Not that Robert would be much help if there were a confrontation between the two of them, but Anna couldn't help wonder whose side he'd take if taking a side were an option.

"I believe I have a daughter," she heard Robert tell Valencia. "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to see her. That's all I'm asking of you, give me a chance to see her. When I've seen her I'll turn myself in."

Anna raised her brows, taken aback by the announcement, "You'll do _what_?"

Robert ignored her outburst, focusing on Valencia. "I'll face my charges after I've seen my daughter."

"You have always taught me that integrity is the most valuable thing we have," Valencia said softly. "If I don't tell Dominguez where to find you, then I lose that Roberto."

As soon as Valencia's gaze drifted away from her, Anna reached for Robert's handgun.

Robert's voice was steady, in spite of his exhaustion. "You've always trusted me, Detective. You trusted me to be your son's godfather. I'm asking you to trust me now, trust me to know that I will stand by my word. That I _will_ face the consequences of my actions…but after I've seen my daughter."

"You know I can't do that…"

Anna tightened her grip on the gun.

"Please," Robert repeated softly. "Please…Valencia. Please help me do this so I can see my daughter. So I can get a glimpse of what my life was before…"

The conflict was written all over the woman's face, and for a moment Anna thought she saw her features soften, until she slowly, sadly shook her head.

"_Lo siento_, Roberto. But I can't."


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter XVIII**

_Barrio Triste, Medellin, Colombia_

"Why?" Robert asked Valencia Munoz. "All I'm asking you to do is what you've done for years. To trust me. You know I _will_ turn myself in after I've seen my daughter."

Valencia Munoz threw up her arms in frustration. She had given up pacing in the tiny room. "I can't just damn well leave here and pretend I haven't seen you! If I do, I become as corrupt as every other dirty cop you've fought so hard against!"

"No," Robert shook his head, groaning as he pushed himself off the mattress. "You could never become one of them."

"Why?" she seethed. "Why did it have to be like _this?_ If this woman was your wife and she knows your daughter, then why not tell you where your daughter is without turning you into a criminal and a fugitive?" She threw an angry glare into Anna's direction. "Why?"

"Because…" Anna shot back, answering for Robert. "I had to get out of that prison before I got killed in there. And because Robin was the only collateral I had."

"What kind of woman does that to her husband?" Valencia asked. She moved towards her, and when she did, Anna noticed the other woman stood half a head taller. Valencia's dark eyes turned downward to make contact with hers, challenging her for a morsel of truth.

"A desperate one," Anna said softly. _That_ much was the truth. That and she would have died before letting Robin find her jail.

"You have no clue how much this is costing Roberto."

Anna bit her tongue this time. This woman obviously didn't know how to back down. Maybe it was because in this city, in her line of work it was never an option. 'You're strong,' she thought, observing her. 'But compromise takes strength too.'

"Valencia, stop it," Robert cut in. "Pointing fingers is pointless. Just tell me we can trust you to let us get to Panama?"

Valencia raised her eyebrows, " _Us_? _Panama?_"

"Gabriel is going to take us west into the mountains tomorrow, towards the Panama border."

"I thought you said they were hills," Anna mumbled, shaking her head in disbelief, "Oh, and why don't you give her a blueprint of our entire escape plan while you're at it?"

"I trust Valencia."

"Right," Anna rolled her eyes. "Silly me. That must have slipped my mind after she said she'd turn us in."

"You're hurt," Valencia pointed out to Robert, ignoring Anna. "How are you going to walk across mountains into Panama in your condition?"

"Even _she_ calls them mountains…" Anna mumbled. She caught Robert trying to stand up, a gesture she responded to with a gentle push of her own, forcing him back onto the mattress, as he leaned against the wall.

"How doesn't matter…what matters is that I can count on you not to turn us in."

Valencia paced the room, hands still on her hips. "In all the time I have known you, you have never asked me for anything. I have always told myself that if you ever did ask me for anything, I would do whatever I could…but I never thought it would be this, Roberto…" Valencia Munoz's lips turned downward, into a lop-sided smile, a gesture that told Anna she had made her decision. "I have to warn you…I'm a horrible liar."

Robert's smile of relief broadened his face, "You don't have to lie. Just forget this meeting happened."

Valencia bent down, on the ground, to be at eye level with him. She didn't resist when he moved to put his one good arm around her. He whispered something to her in Spanish that Anna couldn't understand and when she stood back up, Anna thought she saw that Valencia's eyes were moist.

When she saw Anna observing her, the woman's cheeks darkened. Embarrassed.

'You care for him,' Anna realized, turning away, surprised at the unexpected show of emotion. Anna said nothing as she watched her leave the apartment, with considerable less fanfare than which she had entered it.

The men standing outside came in to speak to Robert, who told them something in Spanish that obviously gave the okay to let her leave.

'I hope,' Anna thought darkly, turning her gaze back to Robert, after both Valencia and the two men left the room. 'I hope you care enough to mean what you say.'

_Intercontinental Hotel, Medellin_

There were countless articles on Roberto Sandoval.

Robin started with the most recent ones. The ones that told her about the shocking, violent way he had helped a mysterious inmate break out of La Catedral prison. She read editorials that bemoaned a world where even the most trusted police official could be bought for a price. Where one of Medellin's most upstanding citizens was now at the centre of its largest ever manhunt.

'Not bought for a _price,_' Robin thought grimly. '_For Mom_.'

It was when she got beyond the recent flurry of articles and dug deeper, and further back in time, that Robin discovered the real Roberto Sandoval. Not just the fugitive and disgraced Assistant Commissioner of Police, but Roberto Sandoval, the man.

With a few words typed into the keyboard and a few clicks of the mouse, Robin learned about everything her father had done while she had believed him dead.

She read about a man who was, for almost a decade, the worst enemy of Colombia's drug lords.

A man who wore bulletproof vests when he cut ribbons at the openings of hospital wings and community centres.

A man who, decked out in full dress uniform, looked both dashingly handsome and heartbreakingly familiar.

It was one such photo of her dress in full uniform, smiling as he shook the hands of a young, dark-skinned officer, no older than twenty, wearing a brand new police uniform himself. The officer was one of dozens of police graduates taking part in a swearing-in ceremony held inside an open-air football stadium, underneath the bright blue skies of Medellin. It was that one photo that Robin kept coming back to, clicking on it again and again, when reading other articles made her eyes water.

In that one photo, her father looked as happy and proud as he had the day when he first told her she was his daughter.

In that one photo, he was everything he'd always been to her. Proud. Strong. Handsome. Infallible.

_Happy_.

Each time she looked at it, it took a physical effort to tear her eyes away from it.

When Robin did concentrate on the articles, she read about his endless efforts to curb the drug fuelled inner city violence of Medellin's Barrio Triste. To end the stronghold the drug lords had over the city's ghettos. To break down the wall of corruption that had plagued the city's police force before his arrival.

Every article she read about Roberto Sandoval, dated before this week, was unanimous in its praise of her father. And each and every online photo she saw was further, undeniable proof that Roberto Sandoval was her father.

Staring at the articles now, Robin realized that all she ever had to do to find her presumed dead father was to look for a man named Roberto Sandoval. It almost felt like a joke.

Robin didn't notice that tears were streaming down her face now. Nor did she notice the man who was approaching her from behind and gently placing a hand on her shoulder, when he stood close enough.

Robin gasped and jerked around to see Mac behind her.

"Hey sweetheart…"

"Aren't you supposed to be napping?" Robin mumbled, her heart pounding.

"I did. I had a nice five hour nap."

"Are you kidding?" Robin looked at her watch in disbelief, "I've been here for five hours?"

"A bit more than that," Mac told her. "I took a shower too."

Robin stretched her arms into a yawn, noticing only now that her cheeks were wet while her eyes were dry as sandpaper. Mac on the other hand looked as awake and alert as he did when she first saw him in Paris.

Her uncle pulled up a chair beside her, "The man running the Business Centre told me he's closing up, but that he didn't have the heart to disturb you. You were so focused on what you were doing."

"Right," Robin smirked, wiping away her tears. "He didn't want to come close to me 'cause he thinks I'm nuts, bawling my eyes out while I'm surfing the Internet."

Mac managed a laugh, but it didn't entirely erase the concern from his face. "I'm sorry…I should have stayed here with you."

Robin put her hand over his, "Don't be silly. You needed sleep desperately. I'm a big girl. I can handle the truth."

"What _is_ the truth, Robin?" he asked softly. "What did you find out?"

"It's Dad," she told him, hating that the tears she'd just wiped away threatened to make a repeat appearance. Big girl, indeed. And why did it tear at her heart like nothing else to say that one little word? Why did that one little word bring back a flood of memories?

_Dad_.

"Take a look," she said, making an effort to keep her voice level. She pulled up the photograph she couldn't stop looking at. It was much clearer than the ones in the gift shop newspaper they'd seen earlier.

Mac's hand reached out to touch the computer screen, "Look at that scar that runs along his chin."

Robin nodded, "I know. You notice it instantly, in every photo. It's like…there's something new and different about Dad, but in the end it's still…Dad."

She showed him a host of articles and images, not only ones related to his escape from the prison transport van, but also some of the earlier ones that had fascinated her.

"You're right," Mac finally conceded. "It's Robbie."

Robin's shoulders slumped and she sank back against the seat, rubbing her eyes. "I don't get it, Mac. _Why?_ Why would Dad leave us and build a new life here, in Colombia?" All the euphoria and elation at realising that everything she had been reading about for the last five hours had been about her father, was slowly mingling with anger. "_Why, Mac?_ Why would he let us think he was dead?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think the WSB somehow forced him? Payback for letting Mom live?"

Mac shook his head, "If the WSB wanted him he'd be working undercover. They'd make sure we never knew he was alive. But this man, this Roberto Sandoval, according to all these articles led a very public life. Look at all the photos in news articles. He's well known in this city and it looks like he made no efforts not to be."

"Then why do you think he would…?"

Mac didn't let her finish, "Maybe it wasn't his choice. Maybe he didn't know who he was. You suggested it yourself. Your Mom had amnesia, isn't it possible Robbie did too? Venezuela isn't so far from here."

Robin frowned. Her far-flung suggestion had been just that, an effort to grasp at straws and make sense out something that didn't, yet now that it was a genuine possibility, Robin wasn't sure she actually bought it. "The odds against both Mom and Dad surviving the explosion with the same type of amnesia, which is rare and unusual to start, are almost nil." The med student in her couldn't ignore _that_ fact.

"No matter how unlikely the odds," Mac countered. "They must be greater than trying to rationalize that your father purposely chose to live without you and your Mom."

"Do you think…" A disturbing thought suddenly occurred to Robin. "There's a chance that Mom _knew_? That this was the real reason she came here? To meet up with Dad somehow?"

Mac recoiled at the suggestion. "You _really_ think your mother would have kept your father's existence from both of us?"

Robin frowned. Of course her mother would have done just that if there was good enough reason. Especially if that reason somehow involved her daughter's safety and well-being. As loyal as she was to her mother, Robin wasn't blind to some of her more infuriating skills. Her mother was _good _at keeping secrets. And telling lies, if need be.

"If she didn't know, then it means Mom accidentally got caught in a police raid headed by…_Dad_?"

Mac managed a chuckle, "There's coincidence and then there's downright spooky."

Robin's frown deepened. "I don't know if I can believe in _that_ much coincidence." If her mother did know that her father was alive, and both of them had purposely kept that a secret from her, letting her believe all this time that he was dead then…well, she wasn't sure she wanted to see either of them anytime again soon.

Her anger must have been written all over her face, because she suddenly felt Mac squeeze her shoulders. It wasn't until he did that she noticed how tense they were.

"But would your Mom really marry another man and have a _child_ with him…if all along she knew that Robbie was alive?"

Mac had a point. Her mother was capable of a lot of things, but that kind of double life was a whole other level of betrayal. Robin wasn't sure she wanted to consider it.

"If our first theory's right…and Mom didn't know about Dad, and Dad somehow couldn't remember his past, then why would he help Mom break out of prison? 'Cause that theory would mean he wouldn't remember her either, wouldn't it?"

Mac nodded, "But your mother would know _him_. Plus, she has the most precious bargaining chip she could have asked for."

"What do you mean?"

"_You_," he said softly. "She could have used your existence to get him to help her out."

"How?" Robin didn't understand.

Mac pursed his lips in thought. "I don't know how exactly. But I know she somehow convinced him to help her _and_ she managed to keep her alias intact at the same time, that's pretty clever. The country's entire police force is hunting a woman who doesn't exist."

Robin sighed. Keeping her real identity under wraps was indeed a clever move on her mother's part. That's if the police didn't catch them, at which point nothing much would matter anymore. "At least now we know she's with Dad," Robin added. The knowledge reassured her. If anyone could keep her mother safe, it was her father. "So what do we do next?"

Mac sighed, turning around to see that the lights around him had been switched off. "First we let this poor guy close up," he mumbled. "Then I think I should pay another visit to the Medellin Police station."

He must have caught the question that lay on the tip of her tongue before she had a chance to voice it, because her uncle grinned when he looked at her, "Don't worry. I'm not going alone this time."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter XIX**

_Police Headquarters, Medellin_

"Donde fuiste?"

Valencia Munoz's heart nearly leapt out of her chest as she spun around to see Juan Dominguez standing behind her.

She hadn't heard him enter her office.

"I've been looking everywhere for you, trying to make sense of the message you left on my phone."

"What?" Valencia hadn't been back at the station more than a few minutes and she needed to jar her memory before she realized what Dominguez was talking about.

"The message about that Commissioner from the United States…" Dominguez answered, giving her a strange look. "You said he had information on Filomena Soltini?"

"Right," Valencia swallowed.

Except now it was information she no longer needed. Or wanted. "I think maybe I was wrong…I'm not sure this man can really help us. Or that he knows anything more than we do."

"What?" Dominguez asked, incredulously. "You leave me an urgent message telling me to find out about this Commissioner Mac Scorpio. That he has information we can use, information that he's purposely withholding from us and now you're saying…you were _wrong_?"

"I was…I was anxious to grab onto any possibility and I think I may have overestimated this Commissioner's connection to our fugitive." God, she was an awful liar. Maybe if her staunchly Catholic mother hadn't brainwashed her into believing that every white lie was a cardinal sin, she might have stood a chance of telling just one convincing lie in her lifetime.

"Where were you, Detective Munoz?"

"What?" Valencia bristled when she heard Dominguez use her title rather than her name. She couldn't remember when he last called her anything but Val or Munoz.

"You left the station this afternoon. Where did you go?"

"Outside. For a walk. I needed some fresh air to clear my mind."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"Excuse me?" Valencia bristled. "Are you interrogating me?"

Dominguez leaned against her desk, folding his arms, his face oddly unreadable. "I asked you a simple question. One that you can't seem to answer."

"I thought I did," she countered, clenching her teeth as her cheeks flushed with warmth. "I told you I went outside to get some fresh air. I walked down the block, then stopped at Rosa's café, on Calle Toledo, where I bought some churros, oh and I almost forgot…I used the bathroom there. Then I walked back along Avenida Montepulcida. _Does that answer your question, boss_?"

"Hey," Dominguez held up his hands in a mock apology. "No need for that."

"Exactly," Valencia hissed. "There was no need for that."

"Hey," he put a hand on her shoulder, "Sorry, Munoz. I meant no offence." He paused before adjusting the gun in his holster. Valencia always thought that Dominguez was uncomfortable carrying a weapon. That, given the choice, he would have rather spent his days in a police lab, piecing together clues under microscopes than enforcing the law on the Medellin streets.

"No leads on Sandoval?"

Valencia shook her head, regretting her earlier defensiveness.

Dominguez's eyes were fixed on hers. "If there was, you'd have let me know, right?" he asked softly.

Valencia couldn't help but avert his gaze, no matter how much she tried to hold it. "Yes."

"Don't worry," Dominguez sighed as he headed for the door. "We'll find him. I know we will."

"I know." Valencia nodded, "We will."

The tension in her shoulders left the office along with Dominguez, and she tiredly felt them relax before she collapsed into her chair, exhaling in relief.

Maybe she had read something into his probing that wasn't there. Dominguez was thorough and meticulous. Painstakingly and annoyingly so. In fact, she had heard her colleagues use far less flattering adjectives to describe his fastidiousness. But at heart Dominguez was a good guy, unwavering in his faith in the judicial system. He always had been. Just because he had taken her into his confidence didn't mean it changed who he was.

She would have never imagined that after he left her office to return to his, Dominguez's first call was to Luis Rigato.

Nor would she have ever imagined that during that call Dominguez ordered to have her put under immediate surveillance.

_Barrio Triste, Medellin_

_The next day_

The man named Gabriel had come to take them down to the transport truck long before the sun came up.

Robert's stubble had grown into a semi-beard and Anna had tied her hair back into a pony-tail and worn the baseball cap Gabriel gave her, pulling its visor down nearly low enough to cover her eyes. Unlike their first foray into the Barrio, this time, walking alongside Gabriel, no one paid them any attention.

Maybe it was too early in the day for anyone to care.

Too early or too late.

Once they stood beside the transport truck, he had handed them each a bottle of water and a blanket for comfort and wedged them between crates of tropical fruit.

"It's going to be a long, uncomfortable trip," Robert had warned her.

"How are you going to manage?" Anna had asked.

"You mean you're not going to be my nurse?"

The question had come out of nowhere. Dead pan. Making her laugh. "I don't think so. We tried that once. It didn't go well."

"It was your bedside manner, wasn't it?"

"Oh no," she'd corrected him. "_You_ were an impossible patient."

Now several hours later, the momentary humour was long gone and, as usual, Robert had been right.

It _was_ a gruelling ride.

At first, while still driving though the city on cement roads, the jerking movements were tolerable. So was the stifling heat that was then a prelude to what would await them once the sun came up.

Now, the inside of the truck felt like a sauna and the roads they travelled on had to be winding and poorly paved, because they were tossing the truck around like a sailboat on open seas. Anna had no doubts that the driver was using back-roads to avoid the periodic checkpoints the police would have set up along major arteries in an attempt to catch Robert.

Anna glanced over to him to see how he was holding up.

Robert was lying flat on his back, on the plywood floor of the truck, drifting between sleep and wakefulness thanks to the pills Gabriel had made him swallow before getting on.

Convinced that he was alright for now, Anna leaned back against a crate, her t-shirt clinging to her skin like a wet washcloth. She took another sip of lukewarm water from the bottle Gabriel had given her, noticing that it was already more than half empty. His instructions to ration it echoed in her mind and, as thirsty as she was, she resolved not to take more than one sip this time.

The truck jerked just as she held the bottle to her lips, sending precious drops spilling onto her pants.

'Damn…' she cursed, putting the lid back on with one hand, while she wiped the sweat off her brow with the other.

The heat and the movement combined were making her nauseous and it took a concerted effort to fight it. The last thing she needed was to dehydrate herself further by throwing up.

'La Catedral is starting to look better and better…' she thought, wondering how much longer she could stand this ride.

She leaned back against the crate, closing her eyes as she pressed a hand against her forehead, hoping the pressure might ease the relentless pounding in her skull.

"Are you okay?" she heard a familiar voice ask over the noise of the trucks' grinding wheels.

She didn't bother opening her eyes. "Wonderful, thanks."

"Anna…"

She felt Robert moving to sit next to her and his sudden closeness made her open her eyes, "I'm okay."

"You don't look okay."

"You're the one who got shot. You should lie back down."

"My shoulder is going to be fine," Robert told her, having pushed himself up so that he was seated beside her, leaning against edge of the same crate. "It was a clean shot. Straight through. No complications."

"Except that you almost bled to death two days ago and now you should be somewhere clean and sanitary, not here, where you're risking infection with everything you lean against and…"

He wouldn't let her finish, ignoring her lecture, as he gently moved her hand away from her forehead, replacing it with his own. "Does your head still hurt?"

"_I said I'm fine_," Anna mumbled, irritated, grabbing his hand and brushing it off her face. Maybe he was right. Everything really _was_ an argument between them.

Robert pulled out a container of pills from the pocket of his pants. "I want you to take one of these."

Anna shook her head, "No."

"Why not?"

"You need them," Anna reminded him. "Apparently we still have some hills to hike through."

"Exactly," Robert smirked. "I worry you won't be able to carry me if you're in such a sorry state."

Anna rolled her eyes.

"For god's sake, Anna." He put a pill in the palm of her hand. "I'm trying to make your life easier. Just take it. Look at it as a favour, to relieve me of my guilt."

"_Guilt_?"

"It's my negligence that missed Rigato's order to throw you in that communal cell. It's my fault you got beaten up and are now suffering the consequences."

"Rigato?" Anna asked, recognizing the name. "That's the cop I shot isn't it?"

Robert nodded.

"Well, then. That takes care of _my_ guilt."

Robert opened his water bottle and held it up to her, "Here."

Anna placed the pill on her tongue, protesting his offer, she swallowed it. "I have my own water."

"Save it for later. You're not used to the heat. I am."

"How do you know I'm not? I could live in Dubai for all you know."

"Anna…" He looked at her annoyed. "Would you just swallow the damn pill?"

Anna did and cringed at its bitter aftertaste, "What _was _that?"

"Cocaine." Robert chuckled. "This is Colombia, Anna. Drugs from a ghetto doctor. What do you think it is?"

Anna wasn't sure whether he was joking or not.

"Kidding," he grinned. "Whatever it is, it'll make you feel more comfortable." His expression serious again when he noticed she didn't share his amusement. "I hope."

Anna leaned back against the crate, giving in when her heavy eyelids wanted to close shut. "What's with the sudden concern anyway?"

"Why? Was I such a cold bastard in the past?" he shot back defensively. "I don't like to see people hurt. That's all. Least of all when I know their pain is my fault."

"If you were a cold bastard I wouldn't have loved you." Anna turned to him, forcing her eyes open again. "But you're not that man anymore. You've gone out of your way to make that clear to me."

"I don't _remember_ the man that _you_ remember," he corrected her, his voice hard to hear above the noise of the truck. "But I'm still me."

"And now you hate me for what I've made you do."

Robert sighed and said nothing, making Anna regret the words.

'Why?' she wondered. 'Why is it still so easy for us to hurt each other?'

"I don't _hate_ you for what I did," he explained before she could answer her own question. "You might have blackmailed me into getting you out of jail, but I was the one who decided to take you up on your offer. I could have said no. In the end, it _was_ my choice. I don't hold you responsible for my choices, Anna."

Anna wondered if he had any idea how much like Robert Scorpio he sounded just now.

_But I'm still me._

Robert always had the guts to take responsibility for his actions. It was one of many things that had made her fall in love with him. He was right. He might not remember his past, but at the end of the day he was still… Robert.

"I'm sorry…" Anna told him. "I know it was your decision to help me. But I'm still sorry for what that decision cost you. I haven't said it yet…but I want you to believe me when I tell you that I never wanted to hurt you."

His blue eyes were fixed on her, and Anna wished she could see inside them to know whether or not he believed her. Hating that it meant so much to her that he did.

"You turned me into a fugitive and I got you beat up in jail, I'd say we're about even."

"Hardly."

The truck lurched up a hill, tilting it at a precarious angle; one which nearly sent a crate tumbling on top of them. Anna noticed it just in time to jump up and push it aside, so its descent wouldn't hit Robert on the head. Instead it tumbled down next to them, making their tiny space even more crowded.

Robert cringed. "Close call."

Anna exhaled with relief, sinking back against the crate she was leaning on before.

"Take one of these to sit on," Robert ordered, pulling one of his blankets aside for her. At the beginning of the trip Anna had insisted he take both blankets Gabriel had given them, in order to give him a moderately comfortable surface to lie on.

Anna was about to protest, but then decided against it. The heat in the truck was suffocating now, blanketing them like a wall of fog, and the last thing she had the energy for was another battle of wills against her ex-husband. If he wanted to be uncomfortable, let him.

Sitting on the wool blanket, as opposed to the truck's wooden planks did manage to smoothen the ride. If only by a fraction.

"So where _do_ you live?" Robert asked her. His features had softened again, as if surprised, or concerned even, by her lack of resistance.

"What?"

"I'm willing to bet it's not Dubai."

Anna rolled her eyes. "No, it's not," she admitted. "Right now I live in Paris. And you're right, the heat is driving me crazy. "

"But Paris is not home," he finished for her. It was an observation not a question.

"No. You're right again. It's not. "

"What is?"

_Good _question, she thought, shrugging her shoulders. "I'm not sure. Before moving to Paris, home was a town in Pennsylvania. Before that, it was Canada."

"But don't have an American or a Canadian accent," he pointed out. "In other words, you're a nomad."

"I suppose…" Anna mumbled, pulling her knees up against her, to stave off her nausea. She wished the roads would flatten so that the ride wouldn't feel like an endless roller coaster.

"Tired?" he asked.

Anna nodded. Tired was an understatement. Anna figured that the fact that she could no longer keep her eyes open had something to do with the pill Robert made her swallow. However, as a trade off, the pounding in her skull had eased into a manageable annoyance and even the heat felt somehow bearable.

"Sleep," Robert told her.

Her brows narrowed, annoyed. 'Stop telling me what to do,' she wanted to tell him.

"Don't fight it," he told her, answering her as though reading her thoughts.

Instead of the crate behind her, Anna's head leaned against Robert, who made for a softer pillow.

Just before falling asleep she wondered if that was precisely why he had moved to sit next to her.

It would have been such a Robert move.

_Medellin Police Headquarters, Medellin_

Valencia Munoz scanned the files on the computer screen with half-hearted interest.

It was an odd feeling. To work on an assignment she had, in reality, already completed.

Finding Roberto Sandoval's whereabouts had been her top priority. She now had to pretend it still was.

So she carried on in her office, and did everything exactly as she would have done, had her meeting with Roberto never taken place.

She went back to going through his personal files with a fine tooth comb.

Until a knock on the door interrupted her.

A young officers brought a man to her door that she now recognized. He was accompanied by a young woman this time.

Valencia frowned.

"Commissioner Scorpio, what can I do for you now?"

There was a difference in him from their last meeting that Valencia couldn't pinpoint. Last time she saw him, he had an air of authority, arrogance even, and this time it was all but gone.

"I need to talk to you," he told her.

"What for?" she questioned. "Why me?"

He smiled and when he did, it reminded her that he was as handsome as he was annoying. "Because you speak English. Because you knew Roberto Sandoval."

"I'm sorry, Commissioner. I'm very busy."

"I know you are." Mac gave her another smile, one that almost lifted her own lips in response. Handsome was an understatement. "_Believe_ me I know."

"What do you want from me?" Valencia asked, as she tightened her lips, irritated at the effect he was having on her. Striving for a look that was at once annoyed and no-nonsense. Not sure whether she succeeded with either one.

"I need to know about Roberto Sandoval."

"Buy a newspaper."

"I did," Mac Scorpio shot back, nonplussed. "It couldn't tell me what I want to know."

"So _what_ do you need to know, Commissioner Scorpio?" Valencia's hands moved onto her hips. "Last time you were here I asked you why you wanted to know about Filomena Soltini and you were not exactly helpful. Tell me why I should help you?"

"I think we can help each other."

He said it with so much boyish sincerity it was almost hard to finish the smirk that began on her lips but didn't quite extend to the rest of her face. "I don't think so, Commissioner."

"I need information on Roberto Sandoval."

"Right. You and every reporter in Medellin." This time Valencia did chuckle, sarcasm lining her expression. "You're not surprised at what happened are you? You Americans have always labelled us as being corrupt and in the pockets of the drug lords…"

Mac Scorpio rolled his eyes. "No…that's not what I'm trying to…"

It was the woman standing next to the Commissioner who stepped in front of him now, an angry scowl on her pretty face, forcing Valencia to notice her.

She was small and petite and Valencia had a hard time placing her age. It was only the authority in her voice that made her realize she was probably older than she looked.

"Did my uncle do something to offend you?" the woman asked her. "If so then I'm sorry on his behalf. I apologize, okay? Now can we get past that and will you please help us find out something about a man that we might know a lot better than you might think!"

"Robin…" Mac raised a hand, clearly annoyed at what the woman had revealed. "Not like this..."

It took Valencia several seconds to realize what he called her. And when she did, Anna's words suddenly echoed in her mind.

_I had to get out of that prison before I got killed in there…Robin was the only collateral I had._

Robin.

The name of Roberto's daughter was Robin. Anna had let that slip.

Valencia narrowed her focus onto the young woman. "What did you say your name is?"

The question puzzled the young woman. "Robin. Robin Scorpio. I'm his niece."

'What are the chances?' Valencia asked herself, mind racing. That this woman standing in front of her, demanding to know something about Roberto, just so happened to share his daughter's name. 'What _are_ the chances?'

Could this woman be Roberto's daughter? Or was she jumping to imaginary conclusions?

"I think…" Valencia said slowly, making an effort not to stare at Robin, not to search for familiar features, and to keep the shock out of her voice. "I think you are right Commissioner. Maybe there are some things we need to discuss."

She motioned them both outside of her office, grabbing her purse and gun.

"But not in here."


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter XX**

_Near the Panama border_

Anna felt him squeeze her arm, waking her.

"We're here," Robert told her, whispering into her ear. He was close enough for her to feel the stubble of his beard.

True enough, the truck had stopped moving and had finally, thankfully, come to a complete stop.

When Anna opened her eyes she couldn't see a thing. Everything was black.

"Robert…" she gasped, jarred fully awake as she pushed herself off the truck's floor onto her knees. "I can't see!"

Again she felt his hand on her arm.

"It's alright…it's night, Anna," his voice calmly told her. "There's no light in here."

"Night?" She didn't understand. "How long was I out for?"

A loud, whooshing sound interrupted Robert's answer. The driver was lifting the truck's canvas covering, allowing them to get out. Robert turned on a flashlight and motioned for her to jump out of the truck.

Anna moved awkwardly, her legs weak and rubbery. She tumbled out of the truck with the grace of a drunk, her body shivering in response to the change in temperature.

The grass she stepped on nearly came to her knees and when Anna took a look around she noticed they were surrounded by endless, densely forested, hills. They stood on a clearing, atop an ocean of undulating trees, uniformly blackened in the darkness of the night.

The sound of crickets reverberated through the night air, punctured only by the occasional howl of something else. Deeper, louder noises, that belonged to animals that were equally nocturnal, yet undoubtedly larger.

'Where do we go from here?' Anna wondered. There was nothing as far as the eye could see. Nothing but trees and hills and impenetrable darkness. There was no sign of light or human life anywhere in her line of vision. Were it not for the moonlight, she wouldn't have been able to distinguish where the roof of the trees ended and the night sky began.

Surely the truck driver wasn't dumping them here, in the middle of nowhere?

Anna shivered at the thought of walking into the darkness ahead of them. Terrified of what they might encounter.

She heard Robert talking to the driver. Saw the man handing Robert two large bundles, before stepping back into the truck.

Robert took the bundles and threw them onto the ground, unflinching when the driver turned the engine on and reversed the vehicle away from them.

"Hey!" Anna protested, glaring at Robert, making a half-hearted effort to follow the truck. "He can't just leave us here!"

Robert sank to the ground, next to the bundles left behind. "What's he gonna do? Drive us through the jungle? He already took us farther than I thought he could."

A mosquito whirred in her ear, biting its lobe before she had a chance to swat it with her hand.

"Here," Robert told her, handing her a black baton. "Take a flashlight. We'll need to see to set up the tent."

"We're going to set up camp? _Here?"_ Another mosquito landed on her face, making her slap herself. "Great…I don't even like the outdoors. "

It was when she turned on her flashlight and shone it at Robert's face that she realized how awful he looked.

"Jesus Christ…sit down, Robert. I'll do it." His face was white as a sheet.

"Right…" he mumbled, not obliging her. "You're going to set up a tent? I thought you just said you don't even like the outdoors…"

"I'll figure it out…" she told him, panic rising at the base of her throat. Who were they kidding? He was never going to make it to the border in his condition. He could barely stand, never mind walk over jungle covered mountains. Anna knelt down and stared at the bundled bags, forcing her mind to focus on something else.

Forcing her mind away from thoughts of Robert's imminent demise.

'_You're not going to die on me again,' _she thought. _'If I have to carry you out of here, I'll find a way…" _

Robert moved next to her, helping her pry open the bag.

"I said I'll do it, damn it!" Anna turned to him. Angry and frightened at once at the sight of him.

"For crying out loud," Robert's pale face looked at her in tired disbelief. "I'm not an invalid."

"You've been shot! You're hurt!" she shot back. "And if you don't sit down right now, I'm going to take your gun and _make_ you. Do we understand each other?"

He raised his hands in exasperation, and sank onto the grassy ground.

The fact that he didn't protest further only served to worry her even more.

Anna lost track of how often she fumbled and dropped pieces of what was to be their shelter. Or just how long it took to light the paltry fire that now burned on the ground.

When she was finally done she marvelled that there was something tent-like that actually stood erect and allowed them to slip inside.

She sank down next to Robert, exhausted and oblivious to the mosquito bites that dotted her exposed skin, like jumbled polka dots increasing in size as they swelled.

"Nice job. It might just hold until morning," Robert mumbled.

"Remind me to ask whoever shoots at you next to aim for your vocal chords."

Robert chuckled.

Anna rolled on to her stomach, pushing herself up to face him. She was starving but far too tired to contemplate opening any of the cans she spotted in the bags, much less warming their contents over the fire. Food would have to wait until morning.

"How are you?" she asked. Her voice let him know she was serious now, while her hand instinctively moved to the bandage on his shoulder. "Are you in a lot of pain?"

"I feel like I've been travelling in an overheated truck all day."

"Are you going to be able to walk up these hills, carrying these bags tomorrow?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "All we can do is try."

"You should eat something…"

"No," Robert shook his head. "Too tired."

Anna felt almost guilty that she was relieved at not having to cook.

Flames from the fire flickered, lighting up his face and illuminating it in the darkness. The stubble on his chin was thickening, threatening to grow into a full beard soon. It hid both the whiteness of his skin and the scar that ran across his jaw line.

Anna turned around, sinking onto the bare ground. "I can barely see your scar now…"

"Good."

"How…" she started. "Do you know how you got it?"

Robert shook his head, stifling a yawn. "I've had it as long as I can remember."

"So it's from the explosion," Anna deducted. If that's how far his memory went, what else could it be?

A pair of tired eyes were suddenly alert again. "Will you tell me what happened that day? Why were we both on a boat that exploded?"

"You should sleep…"

"Tell me, Anna. I want to know."

"I told you…"

"All you told me was that I came to get you." Fatigue lifted from his face as he pressed her for more, "Tell me…_why_ was I there? Why were you there? And why did the boat explode?"

"I was kidnapped," she explained. "By a man who was determined to break us up. I don't know how you found me, only that you did and when you did, it was too late."

"So this man decided to blow up the whole boat when he realized he couldn't have you?"

The questions were coming out of nowhere, without warning and Anna didn't have the energy for them. "Look…" She protested. "I don't know why the tanker exploded. There's so much about that day that I can't remember myself…"

"What do you mean?"

"After the explosion, I had amnesia," she told him. "Like you."

Robert stared at her in disbelief. "_You_ had amnesia?"

Anna nodded.

"You didn't tell me."

"It doesn't matter now. My memory came back."

"So your amnesia didn't last long."

"Ten years," she answered softly.

Robert's eyes widened in shock.

"It came back in bits and pieces. Enough to frustrate the hell out of me. But not enough to make sense of what I was remembering."

"But it did come back…" Robert added with a look of hope in his eyes that asked the question he didn't voice aloud. _If it came back for you, maybe it will for me too._

"Yeah, it did," she told him. "Over a period of time and with some help from my sister, it did."

"Your sister?"

"She's a neurologist," Anna explained. "If we make it out of here, I want to take you to her. I think she could help you too."

Robert grinned, his smile matching the light of the fire outside. " 'If?' "

Anna shrugged her shoulders, shuddering at the thought of what was slithering through the forest outside the flimsy walls of their tent. "Call me a realist."

"You have no idea how much I want to remember."

"Have you had any memories at all? Flashes? Images?"

"Occasionally there'd be images in my mind that I couldn't explain. Images, for instance, of a young girl, with long dark hair, or images of a building or a street that I'd never seen before…but they were rare, and I wasn't sure whether they were real or imagined. Or even if they were connected to my past. I didn't think I'd ever remember more than that," he admitted, his face serious again. "Until you arrived."

Anna pushed herself off the ground.

"The day you first fell into my arms into the interrogation room, I literally felt as though I was stepping into the past. Holding you in my arms was the first time that something felt…familiar."

Anna's throat constricted along with his words. If holding her held the hope of triggering something familiar she wanted to tell him that she'd gladly oblige again.

_You have no idea how much I want to have your arms around me. To have them there because you want them there. _

'But you're not ready for that,' she realized, knowing too that he knew exactly what she was thinking. She could almost sense his gratitude for not voicing her thoughts aloud. To ask him to hold her…_kiss her_…in the hopes that it might trigger a memory was an unfathomable pressure. One she was more than familiar with. And one she wouldn't subject him to. The threat of disappointment was too great. For both of them.

I can't make you feel for me what I still feel for you.

I can't force it.

_It has to come from you._

Anna turned her back to him in silence, sensing that her ability to read his expressions was making him uncomfortable.

Sleep came as soon as she closed her eyes. Thankfully, it numbed the knowledge of how much it hurt when she combined the euphoria of Robert being alive with the realization that he might never love her again.

_Medellin, Colombia_

_Outside Police headquarters_

"Why are we leaving the station?" Mac demanded as the three of them crossed the busy city street. Valencia led the way, taking them towards a church with wide-open wooden doors.

She didn't answer his question.

Mac debated whether the noise of the traffic meant she hadn't heard him, or whether she did and was purposely ignoring him.

She gave him a backwards glance as she led them up the church steps.

'Of course you heard me,' Mac realized with a frown.

Valencia motioned them towards the back, into a pew that was several rows from the nearest worshipper. Only a handful of people, mostly women and mostly old, nearly all of them dressed in black, were scattered throughout the pews. Some were silent, while others murmured prayers in Spanish on their knees.

"Why are we here?" Mac repeated, feeling suddenly uneasy.

"What is your connection to Roberto Sandoval?" Valencia asked him. Her features had softened in the dim lighting of the church, reminding him how attractive she was when her face wasn't lined with irritation.

Although she had addressed the question to him, it was Robin she was staring at, as though searching for something in the young woman's face.

"What do you mean?"

"What is your connection to Roberto Sandoval?" Valencia repeated. "I know English is not my first language, but I think I have asked a very simple question."

"Why are you asking me this?" Mac bristled.

"Why are you not answering?"

"If we do have some sort of connection to him, what's it to you?" Robin suddenly asked Valencia. Her voice was low enough so as not to disturb the worshippers in the church.

"I'm a police officer…" Valencia started. "I'm conducting an investigation."

"If that's the case, why did you take us out of the station?"

"Robin…" Mac cautioned her, raising his hand. His niece had a habit of doing that. Of shedding her calm, rational self in the heat of the moment. It was in moments like this one that she painfully reminded him not of his brother but of Anna. Impulsive, exasperating, throw-caution-to-the-wind Anna.

"Are you Roberto's daughter?" Valencia challenged.

To that question Robin didn't have an answer, instead she stared at Valencia Munoz in shock.

Mac's eyebrows lifted in equal shock. The question had come out of left field. "_What_?"

"Are you Roberto's daughter?" she repeated. Her voice was a whisper, but she asked the question with such clarity she could have beamed it through a microphone.

"How do you…" Robin started, her voice too, hardly louder than a murmur.

"Why would you ask that?" Mac demanded on her behalf.

"It is true then…" Valencia replied, the disbelief written all over her face as she took her focus away from Robin and back to Mac.

"I didn't say anything was true or false," Mac shot back.

"Oh please…stop lying to me!" Valencia replied, banging a frustrated hand against the wooden pew.

"Right. Because you've been so honest."

"Would you please just tell us what you know about my parents?" Robin pleaded. "Do you know where they are? If they're alright?"

"Robin!" Mac yelled, loud enough so that several old ladies' heads raised themselves from prayer and turned in their direction. To say his niece wasn't thinking straight was an understatement. At this rate she would blow her mother's cover within the next few seconds.

"Your parents?" Valencia turned back to Robin. "What do you mean your 'parents'?"

"Do you know where they are?" Robin repeated, oblivious to Mac's glare.

"That's enough, Robin," Mac hissed under his breath. "We have no idea whether we can trust…"

"I think we can trust her," Robin cut him off, facing Valencia Munoz. "Am I wrong?"

"Are you saying that you're not just Roberto's daughter but also…" a touch of colour drained from Valencia's face with the realization. "Oh my god…I should have known just by looking at you. You're also Anna's daughter. You're their daughter."

Mac eyed Valencia with curiosity as she put the pieces together.

"You're Anna's daughter…and Roberto, he doesn't know. He has no idea…"

Mac too was only beginning to make sense of what her words meant. Valencia Munoz knew Anna's real name, and she hadn't disclosed it to the public. That meant only one thing: that she was on Robert's side. She might even have aided in Anna's prison break. Whatever she was doing, she was doing it at considerable risk to her and her career.

No wonder she had escorted them out of the police station once she suspected who Robin was.

"How much do you know about Robert's past?" Mac asked softly.

"You…" Valencia swallowed. "You call him that…just like she does. 'Robert'."

"How much do you know about him?" Mac pressed.

"First tell me who you are." She was regaining her composure.

"I'm his brother."

Mac thought he heard Robin catch her breath, just as his own breathing stopped. It was a crazy, risky thing to tell this woman. It could throw him into chaos and suspicion. Worst of all, it could break both Robert and Anna's cover.

He regretted his words as soon as he said them.

Here he was chiding Robin for her carelessness when in fact he himself had just decided to trust this woman on nothing more than a gut feeling.

"_Su hermano_?" Valencia mumbled in disbelief, leaning against the pew. "You are his brother?"

Mac nodded. Obviously it was too late for any rescinding of words. "Now tell me what you know about Robert…"

Valencia mumbled something else in Spanish that he couldn't make out. "Why did you come here now…after all of these years? You and Anna and Robin? Now when he is in so much trouble, why not before, in all these years when he wanted so much to try and remember the past?" There was no mistaking the accusation in her voice.

"You're his friend, aren't you?" Robin asked softly.

"We didn't know," Mac explained. "We were told my brother died. Missing after a boat explosion. Robin grew up thinking her father died. The only thing that led us here was a trail that connected us to her mother."

Valencia paused, eyeing them both as she took a deep breath, as if debating one last moment before deciding whether she was going the share with them something she hadn't shared with anyone else. She even took a careful glance around the church, checking to see whether anyone she knew might be around to hear. "For ten years, Roberto Sandoval was my boss. He became my friend. He is also my son's godfather. I didn't believe that he could have done what he did. Unless, he had a reason that no one else understood."

"You've been in contact with him after the prison break, haven't you?" Mac probed.

Valencia's lips tightened.

"You can trust us," Mac assured her. "If I wasn't trying to protect both my brother and Anna, I would have told the police everything I know. I needed to lie about who we are, because we need to find him before they do. Before they find out who he is."

"If the police find them, they will shoot first and ask questions later," Valencia told him.

Mac saw Robin's face pale in the dim light of the church.

Valencia noticed it too and put a gentle hand on his niece's arm. "I'm sorry…I should not have…"

Robin shook her head resolutely, "No. Don't be sorry. I'm not a child. I want you to be honest with me."

"Do you know where they are?" Mac pressed.

"_How_ are they?" Robin asked before she had a chance to answer.

Valencia bit her lip. "Your father was shot by one of our officers when he was escaping from the prison van."

Robin winced. "Is he…?"

"A shoulder wound," Valencia explained. "He went to see a doctor in the Barrio, who helped him take care of it. It's how I found him. There's a young girl there he helps take care of. Not many people know about Alicia. I figured out he would go there if he had nowhere else to go."

"Is he still…?" Mac started.

Valencia shook her head. "No…it was too dangerous for him to stay there."

"How about my Mom?" Robin cut in. "Is she with him? Is she okay?"

Valencia eyed her, as if debating her answer. Mac observed her hesitancy with interest, wondering if it was herself or Robin she was trying to protect.

"Anna was hurt while she was in prison but she is okay now."

Robin's brows narrowed, "Hurt how?"

Valencia didn't answer her, turning to Mac instead.

"Do you where they are now?" Mac asked her.

"No," Valencia answered. "I don't. I know there were some men who are friends with Alicia's family who have helped to try and get them to Panama."

"Panama?" Robin asked.

"Once they're out of Colombia, they have a chance of leaving the continent," Mac explained. The thought of his wounded, fugitive brother trying to get fake ID in a Central American country formed a knot in his stomach. He was suddenly grateful that Anna was with him. If anyone was resourceful enough to get him forged papers and help him slip back into his old identity while on the run, it was Anna. Lord knows she was always better at handling pesky illegalities than Robert was.

If she was physically up for the task, that is.

If not, they'd need help. Desperately.

"Is there…" Mac started, thoughts racing through his head, struggling to come up with a plan. "Is there some way you can find out what route they took?" he asked Valencia.

Valencia's face was puzzled, "It will be hard…the men who helped him won't talk to me. But I can think of what I would do…what route I would take…I can…put some pieces together and maybe figure it out."

"If they're hurt they'll need our help," Mac told her, seeing Robin nod in agreement. Neither Robert nor Anna would have wanted their daughter involved in this, but Mac decided it was too late for that. He'd rather face their wrath for involving her, if that meant they'd be alive to chew him out.

An unexpected smile lifted his lips as he thought of what he'd give right now to be able to have another argument with his bull-headed brother.

'You're alive, Robbie,' he thought allowing himself to savour the truth. 'It's really true. We have a helluva of lot catching up to do. I'll be damned if I don't do whatever it takes to make sure we get around to doing that.'

"Will you help us?" he asked, serious again as he turned to Valencia. "Will you help us find them before the police do?"

Her eyes darkened, serious and amused all at once. "I am the Police."

"Please?" he repeated. "Will you?"

Her answer came quicker than Mac thought it would.

"Yes," she told them. "For Roberto I will."

"Thank you," Mac said, meaning it.

Had he been more alert, he might have spotted the lone man who had entered the church and sat down in one of its last rows. He might even have noticed that the man looked oddly out of place and that it was obvious he was here neither for prayer nor solitude.

That, instead, his entire attention was focused only on the three of them.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter XXI **

_Medellin Police Headquarters,_

_Medellin, Colombia_

"Where did they go afterwards?"

"She came back here, but left briefly afterwards. She said her son was ill. She had to leave. The other two went to the Intercontinental in El Poblado. I assume they're staying there."

"Who's tailing them?"

"Chavez is on Munoz and Torres on the others."

"Good," Juan Dominguez paused. "Keep me updated. I also want a tracking device on Munoz's car."

He hung up the phone without another word, frowning as he did.

It was bad enough that the one man he'd always idolized as the finest officer in the city had turned out to be a fraud, Valencia Munoz was another matter altogether.

He could excuse Sandoval's betrayal by reminding himself that Sandoval, with those clear blue eyes, strange accent and lack of a past, wasn't one of them. He never had been really. But Valencia was different. She _was_ one of them. A _Colombiana_.

She was also his friend. Someone who'd always respected him, in spite of the fact that he would never command the kind of presence that Sandoval did. She respected his faith in the law. His inability to fall prey to corruption.

And now she had done just that.

There'd always been rumours that Munoz had a thing for Sandoval. Dominguez had never believed them. He didn't believe in petty work gossip. What he had believed was that she was better than this. Better than a cheap stereotype.

'Obviously, I was wrong.'

His phone rang, loud enough to jar him out of his fog of disillusion.

Dominguez cringed when he saw the extension on the other end.

Luis Rigato.

'Word travels fast, doesn't it?' he thought cynically. Rigato was no doubt calling to see what had happened after Munoz left the station with the two Americans.

Juan Dominguez hated working with Rigato. Rigato was a self-serving, chauvinist who chronically overcompensated for his lack of intelligence with brute force.

Getting shot by Sandoval was probably the best thing that had ever happened to his career.

He was the kind of police officer that almost made Dominguez ashamed to be one himself.

Except this time, Rigato was on the right side of the law.

And that was the side Dominguez would always play on, regardless of who was on the other side.

He tried to swallow the bitter taste in his mouth, and moved to pick up the receiver.

'Si…?'

_Hotel Intercontinental, Medellin_

"Hey…are you okay?" Mac asked her. "You haven't said a word the entire trip."

It was true. She hadn't. During the cab ride through Medellin and up into the hills of El Pobablo, back to their resort hotel, Robin couldn't think of much to say aloud, even though countless thoughts raced through her mind. Even now as they walked through the luxurious lobby she didn't know quite where to start.

"Robin…?"

"I'm fine," she answered before he could ask anything else. She stopped just short of rolling her eyes. Lately Mac always looked at her the way he did just now. Worried. Concerned. Apprehensive. As though she was still the helpless little girl who sat next to him at her parents' funeral.

And each time she felt the annoyance rise in her throat, guilt crept up right behind it. Never one without the other.

He worried about her because he loved her like a father. Why couldn't she just accept it and be grateful? God knows she loved him enough.

'Because…' she answered her own question. 'I never asked for a replacement after Dad died.'

Mac bit his tongue after her terse answer, knowing better than to press her further.

He held the elevator door open, motioning for her to step inside first. Her uncle the gentleman.

Robin sighed. Maybe Mac's concern wasn't so outlandish.

She wasn't. Fine. Not by a long shot.

Physically, she was drained. The flight and the time change had thrown off her carefully timed drug regimen. She wasn't sure whether that was the cause of her nausea and lack of an appetite. Or whether it was something simpler, like jet lag or the unbearably humid weather that made her feel like the air was moist enough to touch.

Or maybe it was because she was exhausted and, literally, worried sick about her parents.

_Her parents._

The notion still took her breath away. That they weren't just looking for her mother but her father.

In Colombia, trailing her fugitive mother, in this crazy surreal world, she'd found her father. And now, before she'd seen him with her own two eyes, she was on the verge of losing him again.

"What do you think about Valencia?" she heard Mac ask her. She barely noticed that he had opened the door to his room and led her inside.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think we can trust her?"

Robin smirked. "It's a bit too late for that now, isn't it?"

This time it was Mac who didn't say anything, and his grim expression tightened the knot in her stomach.

The truth was, she was terrified that by trusting in Valencia they might have blown her mother's cover. She was a cop after all. What if she had a change of heart and decided she didn't want to risk a prison sentence to help out an ex-boss?

"I don't have anything but a gut instinct to go on," Mac admitted. "But I feel like we can trust her."

"I hope so," Robin sighed, sitting down on her uncle's freshly made queen-size bed. Pausing only for a second before reclining backwards to lie down on it, staring at the ceiling when she did. What was it she fretted about last week at this time? A Chem exam? God, what she wouldn't give to worry about nothing more than lab exams right now.

She imagined yelling at her mother for putting through this. Releasing the pent up anger she felt even now. What the hell _was_ her mother thinking anyway when she decided to smuggle a stolen mask halfway across the globe? Not that her actions could've involved any sort of rational thought, period.

Yet, Robin knew that if her mother were to walk through the doors of this room right now, there wouldn't be any yelling. Who was she kidding? She'd hold on to her mother so tight that she wouldn't be able to breathe.

_I can't lose you again, Mom. I can't._

"Do you think they're okay?" Robin mumbled.

Mac had taken off his jacket and opened the door of the bathroom, letting cold water run from the tap.

"What? Robbie and your Mom?" Mac asked. "Of course they're okay. If they have each other to look out for one another, they'll be fine. They're smart and tough."

Robin wanted to roll her eyes again. She could do without a phoney pep talk. One that neither of them believed. "Valencia said they were hurt."

"She also said Robbie was treated by a doctor," Mac countered.

Robin kept staring at the ceiling. "What do you think happened to Mom?"

She could see envision Mac's frown even without looking at him.

"I think…" he told her. "That there's no point imagining something that may or may not be."

"So we should just hope for the best?"

"Not just." Mac answered. He sat down, not on the bed where she was lying, but at the desk across from it. "Hoping alone won't bring them back to us. That's why we're meeting Valencia tonight and heading towards Panama with her. "

Robin closed her eyes tiredly, a smile forming at the corner of her lips. It was when he said things like that, that Mac often reminded her why she loved him. He always reminded her that actions spoke louder than words.

"Thanks," she whispered. "For coming here and helping me. I couldn't have done it alone. Or with Spencer. I realize that now."

"You don't have to thank me, sweetheart."

"I know that too."

"Good."

Mac went to pour the now ice-cold water into the coffee jug, as if knowing that's exactly what she needed right now. A good cup of freshly brewed coffee.

"Stop worrying about your parents, okay?" he told her while turning on the machine. "They're good at staying alive."

"If you promise to stop worrying about me."

Mac smiled. That same reassuring, warm smile that Robin now realized she'd taken for granted for far too long. "You drive a hard bargain."

Robin grinned, "My Dad taught me well."

Mac chuckled, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt and grabbing the coffee mugs to rinse them out. "Robbie would be proud to hear that."

Robin stretched her arms into a yawn. Maybe a nap wasn't such a bad idea.

"He wasn't the Dad I was thinking of…"

_Munoz Residence_

_Medellin_

The smell of Salvadorian cooking filled her nostrils before she entered the door of her home.

'Pupusas revueltas,' she thought. Hand-made corn tortillas filled with beans, cheese and pork. Served with rice and warm tomato sauce.

Her mother had learned to cook them as a child in her native El Salvador and now she made them at least once a week, and each time she did it reminded Valencia of the security and the happiness of her childhood. Of the hours spent helping her mother cook in the too-small kitchen of the house she grew up in.

"Hola Mama!" she called out from the hallway, loud enough to make sure her mother, whose hearing was starting to falter, could hear.

Instead of finding her in the kitchen, she saw both her mother and son on the sofa, watching a_ telenovela_ with the volume turned on loud enough to mask her steps.

Valencia sat down on the sofa next to her son, pulling him a hug, kissing him on the cheek. "Hola, mi amor."

He returned her hug, adjusting his glasses when they nearly fell off with her embrace. He didn't resist when she pulled him towards her, draping her arm over his shoulder.

Valencia planted another kiss on the top of his head, causing a mop of curly brown hair to swirl around her lips. "What are you watching?"

He shrugged his shoulders and gave her one his trademark smiles. The kind that made her fall in love with him anew each time she saw it. "_No se. Pero me gusta_."

Of course he liked it. Daniel wasn't hard to please. He liked almost everything. Everything interested him. Whether it was books or butterflies. _Telenovelas_ or _futbol_, her son had the uncanny ability to find something fascinating in the most ordinary of things.

He had his father's mind. His brilliant, inquisitive mind.

His father was a professor of etymology at a university in Bogotá. Intellectual and eccentric, he was the polar opposite of the tough, machismo men Valencia spent her working days with. And she had loved him for it. He was a man who could spend endless hours discussing details of the lives of insects that Valencia couldn't even name, and make them sound like the most amazing things in the world.

It was the more arcane things, like Daniel's birthday, that he had trouble with.

Then there were other silly details that escaped him, like remembering that he was still married when, one day, he decided to romance a fellow etymologist. The thought still made Valencia cringe, even now almost half a decade later. That she lost her husband not to a woman who looked like the actresses on the telenovela she was now watching at, but to an achingly ordinary scientist who was ten years older than her. A woman who did the one thing neither she nor Daniel could do for her husband: She kept him interested.

Valencia kissed Daniel once more for good measure. 'I don't care that you have your father's mind…as long as you have my heart.' Valencia could forgive her ex-husband for a lot of things; she could even forgive him for falling out of love with her. It was his utter lack of interest in Daniel that she couldn't forgive.

Daniel, the gentle nine-year old boy, who gladly kept his grandmother company while she cried her eyes out watching _telenovelas_. Valencia knew that her son didn't harbour a single unpleasant thought towards his father. That if her errant ex-husband were to show up the front door right now to play twenty minutes of soccer with him, Daniel would love his father for it. That he wouldn't even ask why his father hadn't bothered to call him once in the last three months.

'You don't deserve your son,' she thought angrily each time the subject entered her thoughts.

"_Es mentiroso. No le ama_," Daniel explained, when he caught her staring blankly at the TV screen.

"Is that right?" Valencia mumbled in English.

"_Que dices_?" Daniel's head swirled around with lightning speed at hearing the foreign words come from her mouth.

Valencia smiled. "_Nada_."

She got up and walked to her mother, sitting on the other end of the sofa. "Mama…I need to talk to you."

The look of obvious apprehension on her mother's face made Valencia cringe. She also felt like she was 12 years old again. Even now that Valencia was in her mid-thirties, her mother could still spot trouble with a single glance.

Valencia explained that she had to leave Medellin for a couple of days, maybe longer.

'As long as it takes to find Roberto,' she wanted to add.

The news disturbed her mother and sent a dozen questions flying in her direction.

"It's dangerous isn't it? They are sending my little girl on a dangerous assignment because she's too foolish and brave and they know it!

"You would tell me the truth if it wasn't that! I know you would!"

"I can't believe you still take these risks now, even now after Eduardo left you all alone to raise that little boy!"

Valencia cringed and begged her mother to lower her voice.

"Mama, it's not work. Please don't scare, Daniel. I promise you. It's personal."

The less her mother knew the better. Especially if the police were to find her absence suspicious and began to question it. The last thing Valencia wanted was to put her staunchly honest mother in a position that would require any sort of lying.

Of course her own lie unleashed another barrage of question.

"Personal? Personal? What is so personal that you can't tell you mother?"

"Is it a man? Is this about a man?"

"Is something wrong with you, _mi nina_? Are you ill?"

Valencia bit her tongue. All this was hard enough without the guilt that was slowly building up in the pit of her stomach.

"No…Mama. I'm not sick. Please, trust me. I can't give you the details now but believe me when I say that I'll come back in a few days and when I do everything will be back to normal."

Her mother's black eyes tried to hook onto her gaze, as if by trapping it she could catch the truth as well. "You are not going for surgery are you, Valencia? You're beautiful, my girl. You're so beautiful. I don't want to see you skinny and perfect. It's not natural."

Valencia couldn't help laugh. "No, Mama. It's not that either." She bent her head downwards and cupped her mother's cheeks, kissing her on the forehead. "Please, Mama. No more questions. Promise me you'll look after Daniel?"

Her mother pretended to be hurt. "As if you have to ask me, if I will look after Daniel! As if! As if you could stop me from it!"

"Right, Mama…" Valencia sighed, relieved that the indignation marked the end of her questions. "Let's go eat. I'm starving. Since I'm going for plastic surgery let's make sure I get my money's worth."

_"Valencia!"_

Valencia laughed, as she put her arms around her mother and walked back into the living room with her.

_Near the Panama border_

"Are you sure you know how to use that?" Anna asked him for the second time since they got up in the morning, raising her eyebrows towards the compass Robert was holding.

"No, of course not. I lied to make you feel better."

Roberto caught her glare and had to make an effort not to grin. It felt strange to banter with her the way he did. Strange and new. Comfortable and familiar all at once.

'Sometimes talking with you,' he thought. 'Feels like talking to my wife.' Except he didn't know what a marriage felt like. Didn't know what it meant to love someone. At least not the way a husband loved a wife.

The way Robert might have loved Anna.

'Correction,' a voice told him. 'Not 'might have'. The way he_ did_ love her. Anna wouldn't look at you the way she does if Robert hadn't loved her. Not Robert…stop thinking of him as some stranger. Me. If I hadn't loved her…' another voice corrected him, mounting the endless confusion of thoughts that ran through his mind. Relentless thoughts that somehow helped him overlook the physical pain and fatigue that threatened to overwhelm him with every step he took.

"This is an actual path," Anna pointed out, stopping dead in her tracks so suddenly that he almost bumped into her, interrupting his thoughts. She turned around to meet his gaze. Wet streaks of hair hung over Anna's forehead, clinging to the perspiration that covered her skin, as if mimicking the moisture that was covering the lush, green plants that surrounded them.

Roberto nodded. He had noticed it earlier but hadn't bothered to mention it to her.

"Other people have walked over these mountains, we're bound to stumble on a path every now and then." Personally, he was grateful. The worn route on the ground meant there were less branches to trip over and less to slap him in the face as they rebounded off of Anna in front of him. It made for an easier trek.

"People that live here?" Anna asked him with disbelief.

"Yes and no," Roberto explained. "There are rebel camps in these mountains as well as drug smuggling operations. There are two main factions, the FARC and the ELN. They're both left wing. They oppose the government, American influence in Colombia, multi-national corporations, the widening gap between the rich and the poor…you name it. Oh, and over the years they've grown to hate each other as well. They supposedly represent the poor and powerless, and they control large parts of land here, funding themselves and their arsenal of weapons with drug money, extortion, kidnapping…you get the idea."

Anna face was serious now. "So is it a good idea that we're on this path? Where we could run into them?"

Roberto shrugged. The path looked ragged and in parts overgrown. It could have been weeks or months even since any organized group of individuals had walked along it. "We could run into them anywhere. Following a path won't make it any more or less likely."

Anna cringed. "You're not reassuring me. What happens if we do…run into them, that is. "

It would mean the end of them, Roberto knew. The rebels would likely kidnap them, and once they found out about the bounty on their heads, they would kill them both and claim their reward, oblivious of the irony that, for a change, their violence would be an act of public service.

"I don't know about you, but I don't plan on running into them."

"But if we do…" Anna pressed.

"If we do, the police will be the least of our worries."

"That's great. So if you don't die of exhaustion or infection, chances are you'll end up kidnapped and held for ransom by guerrilla fighters."

Roberto chuckled. "Are you always this optimistic?"

"I want us to get out of here alive," she said defensively. "I want to know what our odds are."

"I don't have mathematical odds for you, Anna," he replied. "But I can tell you I didn't come this far without planning on making it all the way."

"Good," Anna's face softened.

"If your aim is as good with guerrilla fighters as it was with overzealous cops like Rigato, I think I stand a fair chance."

This time he caught a reluctant smirk on her face, "You always trusted me to help you out of a jam. I see that hasn't changed, even if you don't know it."

The remark caught him off guard, like all her other references to a common past.

"Don't worry, it's a mutual feeling," she added as if sensing his unease. "You had a knack for getting me out of hot spots too. Tell me something else…you seem to know this area well. Have you been here before?"

Roberto nodded. Anna's keen powers of observation were something he was only beginning to appreciate. 'Note to self,' he thought wryly. 'Watch what you say and do because she notices everything.' "I have," he admitted, egging her on to keep walking as they spoke. "A couple of years ago I brought a team of officers up here to track the movement of cocaine from mountain plantations into urban ghettos. It was part of a collective initiative to nip things in the bud."

"Was Valencia part of your team?" Anna asked, speaking without turning back, her attention focused on the path ahead of them.

_Where did that question come from?_

"Yeah…she was."

"You're friends?"

"I suppose you could say we are. Were."

"Just friends?"

The hike was strenuous and he could appreciate the monosyllables, if not the questions themselves. As much as he needed conversation to keep his mind off his shoulder, there was something about Anna's questions that never failed to get under his skin.

_Did you always drive me nuts?_

"Yes. Just friends," he mumbled.

"She likes you."

That came out of left field and Roberto stopped just short of wincing. "She's never said as much."

"Do you think a woman would risk her entire career if she didn't feel something for you?"

Good point.

Had he really been oblivious to that fact for years, only because he valued her friendship too much to imagine ruining it with something more complicated? "I was her boss," Roberto pointed out. "I don't make it a habit to sleep with my officers."

"Did you mean what you said in the Barrio?"

"What I said?"

Anna stopped walking, turning around to face him. "You said that after you met your daughter, you would come back to face charges here."

"Look, Anna," Roberto swallowed. Every time they stopped the weight of their backpacks seemed to compound, as if someone threw in a couple of bricks. Although his pack was considerably lighter than Anna's, he could still feel the broad strap digging into his shoulder wound, like a knife. "Maybe I've never known who I was, but I always knew who I wasn't. I was never someone who didn't own up to what I did. It's not an option for me to spend the rest of my life a fugitive. I owe it to myself…I owe it to the officers I've worked with for the last decade." 'I owe it to Val' he wanted to add.

"What about what you owe your daughter?" Accusation lined Anna's face. "If you go to jail after all this, you're going to break your daughter's heart all over again."

"Can we worry about that when we get out of here?" he shot back. "Which we'll never do if you keep stopping."

"She lost you for over ten years," Anna continued, ignoring him. "What are you going to do? Say 'Hi, Robin. Nice to see you again. I'm off to jail now' ?"

She _definitely_ had a way of getting under his skin. "It's my daughter, Anna, therefore it's my problem to…"

He didn't have a chance to finish his sentence.

A loud shriek interrupted him and before he could react, he saw Anna dump her pack, reach for the gun and push him into the ground.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter XXII**

_Near the Panama Border_

"What the hell…" Roberto didn't have time to react. Before he knew it, he was lying face down on the moist rainforest ground, with Anna, as well as a few plant leaves, covering him.

"What was that?" Anna gasped, gun drawn. "It sounded like someone being tortured!"

Roberto pushed her off. "It sounded like a howler monkey to me."

"A what?"

"Howler monkeys live in these parts. They shriek. That's how they get the name."

"It sounded so close…" she argued, still clasping her gun.

"Put that away," Roberto told her. "He probably was close. We're in his home, not the other way around."

Anna pushed herself off the ground, stretching out her arm to help him up, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. You were talking about guerrilla fighters…and I...overreacted. Are you okay?"

Roberto nodded, pulling her back down instead of getting back up alongside her. "It's okay. Sit down. You're jittery. We've been walking for hours and we need to eat. We might as well do it here and now."

"Here?" she raised her eyebrows. " There's not an inch of open space here and I can see things crawling everywhere."

"Sorry there's no picnic table."

Anna chuckled. "I _am_ starving."

She pulled out two protein bars from her pack and handed them to him along with a flask of water.

"I've wanted to ask you something…" he started as he ripped the wrapping off the protein bar. It was a question he'd wanted to ask since the day he woke up to find her next to him in the Barrio, even though the handcuffs no longer bound her to him. "One thing about you that I can't figure out."

Anna flicked a bug off her pant leg. "Only one thing?"

"Why are you helping me? Why are you still here when it would have been in your best interest to dump me when you had the chance? You've had more than one opportunity, Anna."

Her cheeks blushed an angry red, and she stopped eating. "Are you asking me why I don't fit your stereotype? Am I supposed to sit here and casually explain to you why I'm not a cold-hearted bi.."

"No, Anna…no…" Roberto shook his head, cutting her off, reaching for her arm. He knew the question would offend her, but that didn't lessen his need to have it answered. "I just want to know why you smuggled that mask into Colombia. I _need_ to know."

"I'm not a career criminal, if that's what you're asking," she answered icily.

"But you were caught red-handed with a stolen mask from Mexico's Museum of Anthropology!" Roberto countered. "A rare, priceless artefact that you personally brought to a buyer who happens to be one of this country's most notorious drug lords. An amateur doesn't have those kind of connections!"

She coughed in astonishment. "Are you pressing me for my connections now, in order to have a case against me later on?"

Roberto shook his head defensively, his appetite gone. "No, I'm asking you why you did it. Were you blackmailed? In trouble? In need of cash?"

_Why do I need to know so badly_, he wondered. _And why does the look on her face make me feel that knowing isn't worth it_?

"So if I tell you I was blackmailed, will that make it okay? Will that give you the excuse you need not to hate me anymore?"

"Is it really that hard for you to give me a simple, honest answer?" Roberto's defensiveness rose alongside hers. "Is it so crazy to want to know why you're smuggling priceless Aztec masks into Colombia? You seem to know everything about me…and me, I barely anything about either of us! Forgive me for wanting to know how I ended up marrying a smuggler and possibly a thief!"

Apparently as offended as Anna, the clouds darkened above them and a roar of thunder crashed through the air, followed promptly by an unexpected cascade of rain.

With one angry tug, Anna grabbed her pack and threw down her protein bar, wasting what was probably half her meal. "I am _not_ having this conversation. I am not sitting here, in the middle of a rainforest, explaining my criminal inclinations to you…"

She was already several furious steps ahead of him, and was making no effort to see if he was following her, when Roberto realized she was dead serious about moving on. "Damn you, Anna…" he hissed under his breath, wincing when the weight of lifting his pack sent a jab of pain up his arm. It was distracting enough to make him oblivious to the rain that was quickly seeping through his clothes.

He stumbled after Anna, nearly tripping over several branches, cursing under his breath.

"Did I touch a nerve?!" he yelled in her direction, not sure whether she heard him until she turned around once more. "Does the truth hurt?"

Her face was wet, and for an instant Roberto wondered whether it was only rain that ran down her cheeks. She blocked him squarely in the middle of the path, making it impossible for him to walk past her, for all the branches and leaves that surrounded her.

" _'Does the truth hurt'?_ " she spat back incredulously. "I'll tell you what hurts…having to prove myself to you every single minute we're together." She reached into her jacket and yanked out his handgun. "Take this…'cause god knows you think I'm going to shoot you while you're asleep. Or run away…or steal your damn Rolex watch. Which by the way…I'm not entirely convinced is not a fake."

God, she was infuriating.

Roberto threw up his good arm in frustration, unwilling to take the weapon from her. Unwilling to add fuel to her fire by justifying her accusations. "Obviously answering a simple question is too much to ask in return for springing you from jail. Sorry for thinking I could expect a little honesty from you!"

"Don't kid yourself. You didn't spring me from jail to get honesty from me," she shot back angrily. "You did it to see your daughter!"

There were about half a dozen comebacks lying at the tip of his tongue, but, after a moment's hesitation, he didn't have the heart to hurl a single one in her direction.

Instead they glared at each other in silence, letting the increasing rain crash down around them, soaking them both to the bone.

It was darker now. Even though it was only early afternoon, a green-grey fog had plunged them into an eerie night-like atmosphere, as the rain clouds now blocked any sunlight from pushing its way through the canopy of trees.

Roberto suspected it would be mere minutes before they would have to whip out the two flashlights from their packs in order to see the path ahead of them. Hampered by poor vision and an increasingly moist earth beneath them, the already tedious trek along the overgrown path would quickly go from challenging to near impossible.

As if reading his thoughts and sensing the need to get moving, Anna turned around without another word and started walking again.

Roberto followed the pace she set, suspecting that this time the silence between them would last for at least several hours. Maybe for the rest of the day.

_North of Medellin_

"You said finding them would be like looking for a needle in a haystack," Robin said, straightening her back as she held onto the back of Mac's seat.

Valencia had picked both of them up from their resort hotel and now the three of them were driving north, out of the city.

Mac sat next to her in the passenger's seat. Both of them had changed clothes; Mac into a blue cotton shirt, which he'd already rolled up at the sleeves and Robin into a plain black t-shirt and jeans.

The question made Valencia glance at Robin in the rear view mirror, as she'd done a couple of times before when she hoped the young woman wasn't looking. She kept checking for hints of Roberto in her face, her gestures, her demeanour…as if she needed visual verification to make her believe that it really was all true.

That these strangers from America were really Roberto's brother and daughter.

Physically Robin, slim, petite and dark, was her mother's daughter. But the calm, rational determination; that was Roberto, Valencia decided.

'Anna on the outside, Roberto on the inside…' Valencia thought with a smirk, 'That's a good combination.' Except, she chided herself, she didn't know the young woman nearly well enough to draw _that_ conclusion.

On the other hand, Mac, aside from sharing his brother's cheekbones, bore little resemblance to Roberto. Where Roberto was intense, Mac was laid back. He had a head of wavy brown hair and a pair of warm, curious eyes.

"It would be," she said, finally answering Robin's question. She still had to think about what she said before she said it in English, but it surprised her of just how much of the language she did remember from her time in Miami. The irony that Roberto was the one who had insisted she learn the language, and was now benefiting from it, didn't escape Valencia. "That is why we are not going to try and follow them. We are going to try to meet them at the end of their journey."

"We're heading to Panama," Mac finished on her behalf. It wasn't a question.

'Another couple of minutes and you'll figure the rest out too…' Valencia deducted. "Yes, we are."

"But how is it any easier to find them in Panama than on this side of the border?" Robin pressed.

"If we assume they're heading into Panama on foot then they're going to cross as close to a border town as possible," Mac answered for her.

"Exactly," Valencia added. "Show her the map."

Mac grabbed the map that Valencia had thrown on the passenger seat and opened it to show Robin the border region.

"There aren't many…" Robin pointed out.

"No," Valencia agreed. "Only two true border towns, Payita and Chucurti. Neither of them are much more than a collection of huts in the jungle. Pit stops for guerrillas needing supplies."

"So they could be headed for either of them…"

"They could, but I will bet it is Payita," Valencia told her. "It is much closer to the border and if they're on foot, close is essential." She didn't want to add that given Roberto's injury, keeping their mileage to a minimum was also a matter of survival.

"So we fly into Payita and hope to run into them?" Robin asked, sceptical.

"Pretty much," Valencia told her, while keeping her eyes on the road ahead. They were on the outskirts of Medellin now, and the further away they got from the city the more demanding the roads became. Potholes were now no longer an occasional nuisance, but a constant challenge. Another ten minutes or so and they would reach the local airfield Valencia was heading for. "Except we can't fly into Payita. It doesn't have an airport. We are going to fly into the next closest town and take a bus, or hire a driver to take us into Payita."

"But once we're there…then what? It's not like they'll be walking down Main Street for everyone to see."

Again it was Mac who answered Robin's question.

"Two strangers in a small, jungle town will get noticed. Even if they only trek up to the local bus stop to catch the next one out of town. Someone will see them. They'll be the talk of town."

"That's all I need, one person spreading around word of seeing the two strangers," Valencia agreed. "Payita is a very small town. Roberto and Anna don't look like locals. I think once we are there finding them will not be difficult…" She didn't want to add that the first place they would look would be a doctor's or nurses' office. If there was one.

"They might need medical attention," Robin added, as if reading her mind, the same way Roberto often did. "If I have some basic supplies I can help."

Valencia nodded. Robin Scorpio might look deceptively young but she was not only an adult, but also the closest thing to a doctor they had.

"If we do find them, what then?" Robin asked.

"Leave that to me," Mac answered. "Getting them out of Panama will be much easier than getting them out of Colombia." He looked at Valencia and grinned. "Especially with the help of an interpreter. Right, partner?"

Valencia smirked, "Right." He might not have looked like his brother, but he too was a natural leader. Confidence bred confidence and trusting your partner was essential when you went out in the field. Lives could depend on it.

Valencia had a feeling Mac would do his best to answer the countless questions she still had, even if they were too personal for her to be asking them.

'On the plane,' she thought. 'Once we're on the plane and I don't have to focus my attention on staying out of a roadside ditch. Then I will ask him about Robert's past.'

Valencia stole a glance in Mac's direction when he wasn't looking, and promptly blushed when she caught Robin's face in the rear view mirror.

Mac Scorpio might not have caught her looking at him, but Robin did and Valencia wasn't sure what to make of the subtle smile on the young woman's face.

_Medellin Police Headquarters, Medellin_

"They're heading towards Xavier Airfield," Luis Rigato said calmly, trying to hide the glee in his voice.

Juan Dominguez could almost feel the excitement emanating from his colleague. Rigato loved the chase. Loved that he was finally, at long last, closing in on the prey at the other end.

"It's a good thing we tagged her car," he told Dominguez.

Dominguez rolled his eyes at the liberal use of the word "we".

"I'm going to let the control tower know that we'll need a flight plan of where they're going," he said.

Rigato stood up to grab his suit jacket. His earlier limp was less pronounced now, not only because it was healing, Dominguez suspected, but also because there were no reporters or cameras around. "I will make my way there now. 'Cause I'll be on the next plane off the ground after them."

"I don't think it's a good idea for you to do this…not in your condition. I can helicopter Chavez and Torres up there in less than an hour."

Luis Rigato shot him a look of outrage. "This is my case, Dominguez. Did you forget that after the shooting I was put in charge of capturing Sandoval? So far I let you call the shots out of respect for you. But do you think for one second that, after we've come this far, I'm going to let someone else bring him in?"

'You letting me call the shots has nothing to do with respect,' Dominguez thought. 'You know your limitations. You know you couldn't handle leading a full blown investigation if your life depended on it.'

"If they're out of Colombia it's out of our jurisdiction," Dominguez reminded him. "It will require the co-ordination and co-operation of another police force. Of another country's government…you do understand that, don't you?"

Rigato smiled an icy smile, "If they leave the country it means I have to drag him back across the border to make an arrest. That's all."

Dominguez stood up to meet him at eye level, his cheeks flushing red with anger. "I'm warning you…if you do anything to tarnish this police force…"

Rigato was almost out the door, when he offered Dominguez one last grin. "Like what? Breaking a major crime suspect out of jail and shooting a fellow cop?"

For once Dominguez wished he had Roberto Sandoval's confidence. Were he standing here now, Roberto Sandoval would have put Rigato in his place in such a way that he'd never step out of it again.

Instead, Dominguez stood there tongue-tied, annoyed that Rigato had gotten under his skin _and_ managed to have the last word.

But worse than his aggravation, was the eerie feeling he couldn't shake, that things had spun irrevocably out of control.

Dominguez took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and tiredly thought of Valencia Munoz.

It wasn't the men he was he worried about. Sandoval was a survivor, he had proven that over and over again, and Rigato had the dumb luck of the fearless on his side.

It was the woman who now stood between them that he feared for.

_Near the Panama Border_

They stopped walking just before nightfall, because they literally couldn't take another step.

Anna wasn't sure how she mustered the energy to start the thankless task of setting up the tent in the pouring rain. Robert helped her and as much as she wanted to tell him she'd do it fine on her own, the truth was she wasn't sure she would. So, against her better judgement, she let him help her.

When the pathetic overnight shelter stood on its own, she wanted nothing more than to crawl inside it and collapse in a heap.

It was Robert who stopped her.

"You're drenched," he said, rain pouring down his face as he uttered the first words in hours. "You can't go in there like that, you'll soak everything."

Anna stared at him, not understanding. It wasn't as if she had a change of wardrobe in her pack. There was no clean, white terry-cloth bathrobe, even though she'd gladly have given five years off her life for one just now.

"Take off your clothes," he told her. "You need to dry off. Both of us do."

The inside of the tent did look miraculously dry considering their wet surroundings. Even their two blankets were only wet because of the short time it took to transfer them out of the waterproof packs and into the tent.

"Here," Robert pulled out what looked like two oversized t-shirts from the pack and tossed one to her. "Gabriel figured we might need at least that much extra clothing. Put this on and take off your wet clothes. Maybe it'll stop raining long enough to make a fire and dry our wet clothes before tomorrow."

Anna was too tired to protest and she was vaguely amused when he politely turned around as she undressed, remembering when closing his eyes was the last thing he would have done when he she took off her clothes. She bit her lip at the memory, because it reminded her how wanted he could make her feel with a simple glance in her direction.

"You need to change your bandage," she told him, helping him undress his own wet shirt, eyeing the blood-soaked dressing that covered his shoulder, crossing her fingers that the rest of the bandages in the pack weren't wet.

"I know."

Like their hike during the day, she did the task in silence, grateful to see that his shoulder didn't look any worse in spite of the day's wear and tear. To the contrary, it seemed to be healing rather than worsening.

'Strong man,' she thought gratefully.

Robert said nothing, wincing occasionally when she dabbed at the wound while his ice-blue eyes locked onto hers with a directness that almost made her uncomfortable. 'There was a time when I could read those eyes as easily as I can read Robin's, but not anymore…'

His glance held no hostility. No anger. Only curiosity. An obvious curiosity that probably wanted to ask her a dozen more questions, but one that knew better after her outburst this afternoon.

"We're close to the border," was what he told her instead. "I think we'll reach Payita in less than a day's walk."

Anna smiled, "That's the best news I've heard all day."

Settling down afterwards, they pulled out more vacuum-packed food from the packs and ate it not with any pleasure but because they knew they needed the calories. Several insects had already made their way into the tent, wanting a share and Anna made a face when a giant beetle crawled fearlessly onto her lap.

Robert deftly grabbed it and threw it out of the tent.

"I'm sorry," he said afterwards, out of nowhere, while eating whatever burgundy coloured meat was in his metal wrap. "If I hurt you this afternoon. It's not what I intended."

_Do you have any idea how much it hurts to hear you sounding more like Robert every day?_

Anna shook her head. "You don't have to apologize." It was the truth. Had the questions come from anyone but Robert, she wouldn't have been nearly as defensive. God knows she'd been betrayed in ways far worse, by men she'd loved.

Duke had slept with another woman.

David had lied to her repeatedly. Lied to her and ultimately didn't have the strength to fight for their marriage.

And yet it was Robert's doubts that stung the deepest. Robert questioned why she had the decency to stick around to help him and Anna wondered why that question hurt worse than anything else.

_Because it's Robert. Because he's the one person I can't bear to let down._

"A long time ago, I did something terrible and it made me lose you…" she said softly, oblivious to the rain that was pounding down noisily on their tent, threatening to crush it into the ground. "After that, I spent a lot of years earning back your trust, your love, your respect…so much so that in the end, you were the one person, I knew would never doubt me. So today when you suggested…"

"I'm sorry, Anna," he said softly, and neither his eyes nor his voice left any doubts that he meant it. That too was classic Robert. "But you have to understand that I don't know you the way that you think I do."

"I know," she nodded, unable to stop another damn tear from falling down her face. "I have to start realizing that. But, I'm tired and sore…" she smirked. "Plus my nerves are shot. So in exchange for me trying, promise to cut me some slack, okay?"

Robert laughed. "Deal."

"And to answer your question, I don't know why I did what I did."

"Anna, look if you don't want to you don't have to…"

"No," she stopped him, suddenly chilled from the wet night air that was seeping into the tent. "You do have a right to ask. I used to fence stolen goods. But it's been years since I've done it…" An image of holding Leora in her arms that final night, crept into her mind again, no matter how much she fought to keep it out. "I lost my little girl not so long ago. My baby daughter died of a heart condition and my husband, David couldn't cope with it. Or rather, I should say he couldn't deal with it at first and I couldn't deal with it afterwards. After she died, I handled everything…I took care of the funeral, of the arrangements. Everything. Then, when it was all over, I couldn't do anything more. My marriage ended and I didn't care. I couldn't feel anything anymore. Just…this terrible, emptiness that wouldn't go away. So when someone offered me the challenge to smuggle that mask into Colombia, it triggered something. It woke me up, if you will. For the first time in months, I felt something again. The danger, and the sheer risk of living on the edge... it made feel…alive."

"Anna…"

"It's not an excuse, I know," she admitted. "But maybe it's a reason. Or maybe…" she added. "In some bizarre cosmic scheme, things were meant to happen exactly as they did. If not, how else would I have ever found you again?"

"I'm so sorry, Anna…I can't imagine losing a child," he consoled her and did exactly what Robert would have done. He moved to put his arms around her, offering her a strength and a comfort that were so familiar it nearly broke her heart.

Anna squirmed out of his embrace.

If she let him hold her, she would lose it.

_Don't think you can comfort me the way you used to and still expect me to accept that you're a stranger._

Robert however didn't understand her rejection and the hurt in his eyes was obvious.

"I'm sorry...I can't..." she managed.

Robert nodded. "I see..."

Anna was certain she was asleep before her head hit the ground, comforted by the knowledge that at least Robert no longer seemed to loathe her for yanking him from the only world he knew.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter XXIII**

_Near the Panama Border_

It had been a horrible night.

For him anyway.

The rain didn't stop. Instead, it pounded on the tent relentlessly and Roberto was convinced that eventually it would win the battle and seep through the waterproof fibre that was their roof. And because he kept anticipating the precise moment for it to happen, sleep eluded him.

At one point during the night, he was on the verge of succumbing to his exhaustion, when suddenly a roaring sound thundered in the distance, jarring him back into wakefullness again.

The sound had terrified him. Because that time it hadn't been thunder.

It was gunfire. Machine guns.

"Anna…?" he had whispered, certain that the sound had woken her as well, shocked to find that it hadn't. He debated whether to wake her. Whether she should be as alert as he was. He even debated whether they should get dressed and dismantle the tent altogether.

In the end, Roberto decided against it.

If the rebels were as close as he suspected, the noise they'd cause and the light they'd need when dismantling the tent would be more damaging to their invisibility than staying exactly where they were, crossing their fingers that they wouldn't be found.

Both the darkness and the density of the trees were on their side. Theoretically, the rebels could come within metres of them without spotting them.

So the entire night Roberto sat awake, his heart pounding in unison with the rain. At one point, the absolute darkness made him feel claustrophobic and he turned his flashlight on to its faintest setting, convinced that the light couldn't be seen through the tent.

What his flashlight did spot were the dozens of insects that crawled into the tent.

Some of them were nestled on Anna as she slept, and Roberto picked them off one by one. When a red spider got caught in the tangled mess that was Anna's hair, and kept eluding his grasp, Roberto was again certain that he would wake her.

He yanked at her hair to get it out, squishing the spider in his hand in the process.

"Sorry," he mumbled, surprised to find that the action not only didn't wake Anna, it barely made her stir in her sleep.

'At least one of us is getting some much needed rest…' he thought. He didn't begrudge her the rest. She needed it. There was no point in both of them losing sleep, fearing for their lives.

'I can't imagine losing a child…' he thought, watching her sleep. His feelings towards Anna had changed since last night. He couldn't explain why, but he knew now, with certainty, that she was on his side. He also knew that he would do whatever it took to keep her alive, just as she'd done for him since he'd been shot.

Anna had crashed into his life, literally, by falling into his arms the day they met, and then proceeded to turn that life upside down and inside out. She'd taken everything he knew about himself and challenged it. And then she teased him with a whole other life. One that might even include a daughter.

He couldn't imagine a future with Anna in it. Yet at the same time she was his only link to his past and he couldn't imagine losing that link.

Was that the whole truth, he wondered. Was she nothing more than a link to his past?

Several hours later, still awake, he yawned as he glanced down at Anna and checked his well-worn Rolex watch for the time. It was morning already.

" 'Not entirely convinced it's not a fake'…" he repeated her earlier words aloud with wry amusement. "As if I'd wear a fake." He took it off and clipped it around her wrist, where it hung loosely.

"Wear it for a while and decide for yourself. Expert."

Even that gesture didn't wake her.

He squeezed her hand, "Come on, this isn't a resort holiday. Time to pack up and move on."

He ran his hand along her face, noticing that it was cool and pale.

"Anna…?" He remembered the day she fell into his arms at the prison. The ghastly bruises that covered her face. Her obvious discomfort in the truck. The fact that she'd never let the prison doctor fully examine her. What if there were internal injuries that they had missed…

_What if…?_

"Anna!"

Fighting back the urge to panic, Roberto put his arm behind her back and yanked her into a sitting position and in that instant, as he pulled her towards him, an image flashed into his mind, with a clarity that almost made his heart stand still.

Suddenly he was no longer in a tent in the middle of the jungle.

_He was on a beach in Europe._

_He was so elated he could feel the thrill of the moment in every inch of his body. He was thrilled to be where he was. To have her in his arms. To kiss her._

_Her hair was long and dark. So long that it went far past her shoulders, straight down her back. Waves lapped at both of them, covering them with white foamy water, making him come up for air, even though he didn't want to._

_Her kisses were warm, wet and salty. _

_And she was so beautiful it took his breath away._

"Robert…?"

Anna stared at him groggily, her sleepy voice yanking him back into the present. She looked disoriented.

He held on to her with shaking hands.

"Hey…what's wrong?" she asked. One of her hands reached out to touch his face, and her eyes narrowed with concern as she slowly focused them.

"I…" he didn't trust his voice. "You didn't wake up…I was…I didn't know…"

"Robert…you're as white as a ghost!"

He loosened his grip on her, still shaken by the image. _The memory_. "Look…I was worried. You didn't wake up."

"I'm sorry…I didn't mean to scare you."

"Anna, if you're feeling sick, or dizzy, or if you're headaches are worse…for god's sake would you tell me?"

"What?" she looked at him, not understanding. "What are you talking about?"

"I want you to tell me if you think you might be hurt."

Anna sank back down onto the floor of the tent, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, annoyed now. "Then what? You're going to book me a doctor's appointment in the jungle?"

"This isn't funny, Anna. You were out cold."

Anna raised her brows in disbelief. "I was exhausted, for heaven's sake. So I missed your wake up call. Shoot me."

Roberto bit his tongue. A conflicting mix of anger and relief washed over him. "Fine then. We have to pack up…"

She noticed his watch on her wrist. "What's this?"

"I thought maybe if you wore it for a while you'd agree that it's real." He tried to sound casual, but even that remark had hints of his irritation.

"Hey…" she sat up again, and he felt her hand on his shoulder. "What's gotten under your skin?" Her voice was softer now. Gentler. "It's not just me not waking up in a timely manner is it?"

_Did you forget she notices everything?_

"It's nothing," he mumbled, not looking at her.

"I don't believe you." Her hand was still on his shoulder. "It's not nothing."

What was he supposed to tell her? That he had a memory of the two of them making love on a beach? What if she told him he was crazy…that it never happened, that it wasn't a memory at all? But a figment of his imagination.

What then?

And why had his first memory been of making love to Anna. Why not a memory of Robin? Or even Robin's mother? He reminded himself to ask Anna what her name was…

The notion that he might have actually remembered something was too incredible to risk being shattered with the truth. If the memory wasn't real, and only Anna could tell him whether it was, then he didn't want to know. Not yet.

"Something's upset you…"

He faced her and tightened his lips. "I said it's nothing," he repeated, with a finality that let her know it wasn't up for discussion.

_Yaviza, Panama_

Mac Scorpio wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his palm.

"That was _not _an airport," he protested in a shaky voice, after a wobbly touchdown on a badly paved runway. The ride on the rusting propeller plane was nerve racking enough; he could've done without a landing that made him whisper a prayer under his breath.

"We landed, didn't we?" Valencia Munoz shot back, amused at his obvious relief.

Mac exhaled, hoping neither of the two women would notice that his hands were still shaking. There was a time he could do this sort of thing in his sleep with the same cocky grin on his face that Valencia was now sporting.

Maybe he was getting old.

'Or maybe I've just spent too much time inside an office and not nearly enough out in the field.'

Robin might have been a couple of notches paler than when she boarded the plane, but overall she seemed to have weathered the ride much better than he did.

'She really is your kid, Robbie,' he thought. 'The calm in the eye of a storm.' Even so Mac regretted taking her along. Robin was HIV positive and here he was bringing her into guerrilla territory in the Central American jungle, while tracking down two fugitives.

The risks to her health and well-being kept mounting.

'If anything happens to her, I'll never forgive myself,' he thought.

Never mind that Anna would be furious with him for risking her daughter's life. Robin's mother was the last person who would want to see her daughter here.

Mac almost wished Robin were a teenager again. Keeping her at home by grounding her was much easier to do when she was thirteen.

Mac saw Valencia walk off to speak to the pilot as they got off the plane and he used the chance to check in with Robin. "You okay, sweetheart?"

Robin leaned against the hull of the plane, after she flung her backpack onto the ground. "That was…quite the ride."

"I never thought I'd be this grateful to have solid ground beneath my feet," Mac agreed, watching Valencia argue with the pilot. "Is it just me, or was she totally unfazed by that flight?"

Robin smirked, "I have a feeling she's done this before."

Valencia came back to them and threw her hands up in the air. "He says he can get a helicopter to take us to Payita but he is asking too much for it. So we will wait for a driver instead," Valencia told them.

"How much does he want for the chopper?" Mac asked.

"Five thousand," she shot back. "And he wants American dollars! Bastard."

"Give it to him."

"What?" Valencia looked at him in disbelief. "We…I can't…"

"Tell him we'll pay it. Half of it now, and half of it when he brings us all back here. Including the two extra passengers we'll have then."

"You have that kind of money on you?" Valencia whispered. "This isn't America. He doesn't take credit cards!"

Mac put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him so the pilot couldn't watch the conversation from a distance. "Tell him we'll pay cash."

"If we make him that offer and not pay him, he will kill us, starting with Robin, do you understand that?" Valencia reiterated, in disbelief. "Is that clear to you?"

"Of course," Mac answered her.

A couple of days ago, he had a large sum of money wired to their hotel in Medellin. Given Anna's situation and knowing that he might end up outside of official channels to help her out, he knew that cash would be the most precious bargaining chip he could have and that he'd need generous amounts of it on hand.

"You better not be bluffing." Valencia repeated, raising her sunglasses, so as to look him in the eye. Each time her features softened, Mac was struck by how attractive she was. "I have a young son, Mac. I don't want him to grow up without a mother, do you understand that?"

"Hey…" he reassured her. Considering how much of his trust he'd put in her, he wished she could find it in her heart to put a little more in him. "No matter how much I want to find Robbie and Anna. I'd never do it at your or Robin's expense. I have the cash and if we can use it to get to Payita faster, I say let's do it."

She frowned and looked like she was reading his thoughts. "Okay, Mac. I will trust you. Again. But don't make me regret it."

_Xavier Ruega Airfield, North of Medellin_

A warm north wind blew across the tarmac as Luis Rigato limped towards the air traffic control tower. The combination of exertion and humidity wrinkled his white dress shirt with perspiration and made it stick to his skin, underneath his suit jacket.

He had expected someone to greet him at the base of tower but there was no one.

Annoyed, he laboriously made his own way up the steps to speak to the air traffic controllers inside.

He flashed his badge just before he walked through the doors.

"Detective Luis Rigato, Medellin Police."

There were two men inside the room.

"I need to speak with Diego de la Cruz...we spoke on the phone in regards to the plane that we are tracking that flew into Yaviza, Panama."

The older of the two men came to him with an outstretched hand. "Here is their flight plan, as you requested."

"The Medellin Police should also have a plane ready on the tarmac to follow that same flight path," Rigato added brusquely. "Do you know if it's ready to go?" Time was precious. He didn't have any to waste.

He was so close to capturing Sandoval he could almost _taste _the thrill of victory on the tip of his tongue. A taste that was sweet enough to override the pain in his leg.

"Sir...I have received a call from a Lieutenant Juan Dominguez," the old man replied. "He asked me to ensure the plane does not take off before the arrival of two other officers." He lifted up a piece of paper on which he had hastily scribbled the names. "Officers… Torres and Chavez are to meet the plane that's waiting for you. He told us they will arrive shortly."

Rigato felt his blood pressure rise, and as it did, his wounded leg throbbed.

That desk rat Dominguez was still trying to undermine him. Ordering two babysitters to keep him in check. To share his glory. Damn him.

Rigato suspected his intentions might even be worse than that, that Dominguez may share Munoz's misguided loyalty for Sandoval and was now giving him time to get away. Nothing would make Dominguez and Munoz happier than to see Rigato fail. They had teamed up against him often enough in the past.

Rigato couldn't wait to see their faces when he was the one who would do what the entire Medellin police force couldn't: capture Sandoval.

"I'm the commanding officer of this investigation, Senor De La Cruz. Since when do air traffic controllers decide who's inside a plane when it takes off? Give me the damn flight plan and I'll worry about who is on that plane when it takes off!"

The old man nodded, indifferent to his arrogance. "Yes, sir."

"Show me where it is."

_Near the Panama Border_

"Are you ever going to tell me what's been eating at you all day?" Anna prodded as soon as they slowed down.

She was breathing heavily, just as he was. They had been walking steadily since packing up their tent in the early morning.

The combination of his unexpected memory and his lack of sleep meant that adrenaline alone had kept him going. Each time they stopped, his supply of it seemed to plunge to dangerously low levels, leaving him tired, irritated and on-edge.

"Can't you just let it go?"

Anna shook her head at the absurdity of that notion. "Not when I see you so bugged by it that you won't talk to me all morning."

Roberto chuckled. As much as she got under his skin, it was surprisingly hard to stay angry with her. "You didn't talk to me all afternoon yesterday. Maybe I'm just returning the favour."

"Did something happen last night while I was asleep?" she asked, ignoring his attempt at banter.

"Fine, I'll tell you what happened…" he started, giving up on the idea of keeping it to himself. "I had a memory."

He sat down on a thick, moist branch. Even if it meant stopping the flow of adrenaline, he needed a break.

"You...what?" Anna sat down next to him, her expression a combination of shock and excitement. "What was it?"

Roberto paused, debating whether he was ready to tell her everything he remembered. Whether he was ready to accept the truth that it might not have been a memory at all. "Don't laugh, okay?"

Anna's face was solemn and she wouldn't let him make light of it. "Tell me."

"I remembered us. We were much younger. We were on a beach. I was breathless and tired and relieved, and so were you, but we…we couldn't keep our hands off each other."

"Italy." Anna said softly, a smile spreading across her face. "We swam from France to Italy. We were on an assignment and were being followed. We desperately needed to cross the border and since the two countries share a coastline you… you suggested we try and swim across. So we did." Anna's smile broadened. "It was crazy. But we made it and we were both so exhilarated we had to celebrate, right there…on the beach."

Relief washed over him along with her confirmation. It was such a tangible relief that he felt a physical weight lift from his shoulders, making him feel lighter.

He wanted to laugh.

It _was_ real.

Finally. After so many years. A genuine memory of the Before. The very first glimpse of who he had been. No, he corrected himself, _who he was_.

A lopsided smile framed Anna's face, "If this is your first memory, then you picked a really good one."

"What else happened that day?"

"Well…we fell in love and got married," she grinned, before tears fell down her cheeks and Anna wiped them away, embarrassed. "Did I mention we were young and impulsive?"

"What was it like…our wedding?" he asked, moved by her emotional reaction.

"It was beautiful. I'll never forget it. I'm just...I'm so happy, Robert. It's amazing that, after all this time you remembered something about it." She smiled, "Something that...led to it."

'Y_ou_ made me remember,' he wanted to tell her. But didn't. "Maybe this is a start…if I could remember that, I might remember other things too."

"I think it's possible..." she told him. "I want you to see my sister, Robert. I think she could really help you."

"If you think she can help…then yes," he agreed. "Because I want to remember, Anna. You have no idea how much."

"I think Robin might help too."

Her eyes looked into his with their usual familiarity and for a change he was unperturbed by it. Because he trusted her now, the notion that she might know him better than he knew himself no longer bothered him.

"You know me intimately and I don't mind..."

"What?"

Roberto winced. He'd spoken his thoughts aloud.

"Here..." he said, changing the subject as deftly as he could. He held out his hand to her and glanced at the compass he was holding, a smile raising his lips when he saw the co-ordinates on it. "Oh god, I had no idea we were this close..."

"What is it?"

"I think...we've crossed the border…"

"Really?"

"Come over here..." He climbed a few steps up towards a clearing. They were atop a steep hill and were it not for the dense foliage around them, Roberto was certain they'd have a view across the jungle spanning miles and miles in each direction.

"Do you see that?" he asked her pointing north, across the endless expanse of treetops.

Anna shook her head and looked out into the distance, from where they stood, "No. What is it?"

"Over there," he pulled her towards him, hoisting her up.

"Smoke?"

"Not just smoke." Roberto grinned. "Payita. Panama."

Anna's eyes widened. "Panama? Really? You mean we did it?"

Roberto was still grinning, "I think so..."

Anna laughed and grabbed his hand, "Well what are you waiting for then...come on! Let's go."

Exhilarated, she went down the hill ahead of him. Her pace was suddenly faster than it had been all day.

Roberto noticed too late how muddy and slippery the slope was, thanks to the night of rain they had last night.

"Anna!" he cautioned, "Careful, it's slippery." His warning came too late and Roberto watched in shock as she lost her footing.

She tumbled down the ravine, trying in vain to grip on to something.

_"Anna!"_

He ran after her, but in his carelessness, his foot got caught in a branch and he realized too late that the hill was steeper than he thought.

"Shi..."

He didn't have a chance to finish his thought.

Losing his balance made his knees buckle and Roberto careened forward, propelled by the weight of his pack. Leaves and branches slammed against him, whipping him like strands of rope, with enough force to leave behind bloody scratches but not enough to slow his momentum.

The last conscious thing he did was make an attempt shield his head with his hands, knowing there was nothing he could do now but let gravity take its course and crash down the hillside after Anna.

He prayed he wouldn't land too far from her.

And that when he did, they'd both be in one piece.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter XXIV**

_Panama, Central America_

The world was upside down when he came to.

Literally.

Roberto was lying face down on the jungle floor and mud was seeping into his nostrils. With his first conscious breath, he coughed to keep from choking. Pain followed the involuntary movement, with a ferocity that nearly took his breath away again.

One of his arms was twisted underneath his stomach and the other was on his back, caught in the straps of his pack, which, through some sort of miracle, was still attached to his body.

From a bird's eye view, Robert resembled a macabre marionette, whose limbs were twisted around his body in a variety of grotesque angles.

'Get up...' a voice inside his head urged him. Like all his thoughts, it spoke to him in English.

_Get up._ _Now_!

Roberto groaned as he did just that.

He got up.

Foliage spun around him in a kaleidoscope of greens and his knees threatened to give in and send him crashing back down to the wet, muddy ground.

His heart started pounding when his blood rushed from his brain into his limbs.

_Dizzy._

He was so unbelievably dizzy. So much so that he struggled to keep from heaving.

He wanted to lean against something, but there were only large, wet leaves on the ground. The nearest tree trunk was several steps away.

_Keep standing._

Letting himself collapse to the ground and repeating the entire procedure would be worse than trying to keep standing now, no matter how much his limbs protested.

He hurt all over, but aside from his shoulder, there was no one sharp, precise pain in any part of his body.

"Good," he mumbled, testing his voice. The fall might have knocked the wind out of him, but nothing appeared to be broken or sprained.

The weight of his pack nearly weighed him down and Roberto wrenched it off his shoulders, letting it fall to the ground. He barely had the strength to keep standing. Carrying anything was not an option at the moment. He pulled the compass, a few energy bars and a container of water purification tablets from the pack and left the rest there.

Next, he took a tentative step to test his mobility.

He wobbled like a drunk and made it only as far as the nearest tree trunk, gratefully leaning against it, wiping sweat off his forehead from the exertion. A glance at his clothes made him realize he was filthy, covered in mud and dirt and bits of vegetation. A couple of leeches had fastened themselves to his leg. The black little insects ignored the caked blood on his skin, feasting instead on the fresh supply underneath.

Roberto pried them off with his fingernails, and as soon as he did, his jumbled thoughts raised a question that nearly made his heart skip a beat.

_Anna?_

Where the hell was Anna?

"Anna...?" he managed to mumble, his voice hoarse and shaky still.

_Pull yourself together_. _Now._

"Anna!" he yelled, turning his head to scan the area around him.

He remembered seeing her fall down ahead of him. But then his own tumble had made him lose sight of her. He knew now that his fall had left him unconscious. For how long, he wasn't sure.

That said, Anna couldn't have landed that far from him.

Yet knowing that, why wasn't she looking for him? Why wasn't her voice yelling out his name?

Panic rose in his throat.

"Anna! Where are you?" he yelled again, louder still. "_Anna!" _

He took several steps and nearly fell back down again. The vegetation was so thick here; it was almost impassable without a scythe to clear the way.

'Lift your legs up, damn it,' he cursed himself, looking frantically for any signs of Anna.

He kept yelling her name out into the forest, ignoring the risk of someone else hearing him.

He stumbled around aimlessly until he spotted a glimpse of black fabric from the corner of his eye.

Anna's t-shirt was black.

He ran clumsily towards the spot where he saw the fabric and there he found Anna, lying on the ground, unmoving.

Unlike him, she wasn't lying on her stomach, but on her side with one arm underneath her head. Roberto dropped to his knees beside her and nudged her, before moving his arm underneath her, pulling her onto his lap.

Her face was covered in bloody scratches and she gave him no sign of life. Her body was limp and lifeless in his arms and the panic he felt when he first saw her suddenly magnified a hundredfold.

"Come on sweetheart...wake up..."

Trembling fingers moved to her throat to search for a pulse.

He found one. Faint. But it was there.

_Thank God._

He slapped her cheek. Gently at first. Then harder.

No response.

A surge of adrenaline accompanied his panic, making him forget about his own dismal state. "Come on, sweetheart, don't wimp out on me now. We are _so _damn close."

Seeing her, so still, took him back several hours, to the early morning, when he couldn't wake her.

And now, when he looked down at her bruised face, a powerful sensation suddenly yanked him back even further with a force that he couldn't control.

Not to this morning.

Much further.

Not just days and months.

But years.

Decades.

All of a sudden, he wasn't in the jungle anymore but in Paris.

There was an explosion. Bullets flew through the air in an alleyway littered with steel canisters. And after it was over, he held Anna in his arms, the way he did now. Her face was a burned, scarred mess.

Looking at her had broken his heart then. For more reasons than one.

His memories shifted, away from Anna and towards a beautiful, dark-haired girl with Anna's eyes, staring at him in his living room.

"My name is Robin."

He smiled at the memory. Smiled at the contrast between losing love and finding it.

And just as suddenly as Robin had appeared, she was gone again.

But saw her again, years later, at a wedding.

_His_ wedding.

The girl who was no longer a girl, but a young woman. And the woman who was even more beautiful now, than she was that day on the beach.

A wedding in pink. In a beautiful estate garden.

There were other memories too. They flooded his mind, surging inside him, relentlessly, one blurring into the other. It was like watching a movie, stuck on fast forward. It overwhelmed him and he struggled to let them all in, afraid if he did he might pass out again. Even more afraid that if he didn't, he'd never have another chance to see them.

There were so _many_ memories.

Places he'd lived in. A modern apartment. A big, beautiful house.

Women he'd loved. He saw their unforgettable faces as, one by one, they tumbled into his mind.

Holly. Cheryl. Katherine. Anna.

He saw his family. The parents he'd lost too soon. His brother, Mac. His pride and joy, his only child: Robin.

His friends. Luke. Tiffany. Sean.

Yet they were more than just images. They were full, physical sensations. He remembered simple, arcane things too. Like the feel of Robin's soft skin against his when she kissed him. The sound of a man singing at a bar when he danced with Anna in his arms.

And then he saw another explosion. Bigger than the one in Paris. An explosion aboard a tanker.

Fire engulfed him. Not just him, but him and Anna, and now, at last, he knew why he was there on the boat, that day.

_Because I couldn't stand the thought of losing you._

'I lost my memory the day I lost you…and now they came back, at the thought of losing you again…'

It was hot and humid in the jungle, but Robert was ice cold and he shivered so violently that goose bumps lined the skin on his arms. Tears fell down his face, dripping onto Anna, unmoving in his arms. He couldn't feel his arms anymore. His limbs were frozen and immobile. Useless.

He couldn't stop crying. And shaking.

He never imagined it would happen like this. That everything would come to him all at once. Flooding his already strained senses. Filling him. _Drowning_ him.

He was certain that if they came back at all, his memories would come back slowly. That they would be pieces and fragments. But this was different. It was as though someone had flipped a switch in his brain and turned on the light. Gone was the void that was the Before. There was no more Beginning. No more line between the two.

Everything had merged into one.

The Present and the Past.

_Come on, luv…wake up. Come back to me. _

_Please. Come back. _

_I don't want to do it without you this time._

_I can't. _

Was he saying or thinking the words? He wasn't sure.

Maybe he was just wishing them.

Come on, Anna. Wake up.

_Payita, Panama_

Valencia had been right when she said that Payita was little more than a collection of huts, and after seeing the curving, unpaved road that led into it, Robin Scorpio was glad that Mac had insisted on taking the helicopter, as ridiculously expensive as it was.

She also remembered the densely forested hills she had seen from the window of the chopper before they landed and wondered how her parents could possibly have made their way here on foot. Wondered what it was like to spend a night in these jungles. Were there wild animals? What about the risk of illness? Had her mother at least done one sensible thing and taken anti-malarial drugs before coming here?

'I doubt it,' Robin thought with a frown. It was exactly the sort of simple, reasonable thing her mother _would_ forget.

Was it really possible she was the only one in her family with any rational genes?

Her mother had teased her once, that maybe she was really her sister's daughter, because Robin seemed to have infinitely more in common with her level-headed aunt, Alex, than her impulsive mother. It wasn't an unflattering comparison; in fact, Robin loved and admired her aunt. Admired her for her medical genius and loved her for how she put it to work. But then Robin rarely reminded her mother that some of her hobbies included motorbike riding and bungee jumping. That the risks of living with HIV, made the risks of hanging on a rope over a bridge pale by comparison.

Robin had never felt the need to wear her love of excitement on her sleeves. And because she didn't, it was easy to deduct that she was nothing like her parents, when in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, she was a thinker and a doctor, like her aunt, and she did prefer the silence of a medical lab to sounds of gunfire. And given the choice between confrontation and diplomacy she would always choose the latter.

Yet, sometimes people forgot that she too, was a survivor. She may not have fought some of the things life had thrown at her with the same kind of ferocity her mother might have, but that wasn't her style. Holding her own against the chaos, with a stubborn yet patient perseverance, knowing that eventually she would rise above it all. _That _was her style.

'That ability to survive against the odds…' she thought with a grudging admiration. '_That_ I inherited from my parents.'

'How did _you_ survive these last ten years, Dad?' she wondered. What had his life been like all these years, a world away from his home and family?

'Are you still the same father I remember?' she wondered. The last decade had to have changed him. 'Have you changed so much that I won't recognize you anymore?'

She wanted to see him so desperately now, that Robin could swear she felt a prickling underneath her skin. Anticipation had evolved into a physical symptom.

Yet at the same time she dreaded it.

'What am I going to say when I see you?' she wondered. '_If _I see you.' She had so many questions flying through her mind, yet no idea where to start.

'_Why_,' she decided. 'I want to know _why_ you chose to live a life away from us.'

"What are you thinking?" Mac's voice interrupted her thoughts.

Robin turned to him, pushing the image of her father's face from her thoughts. "I was thinking that…it's so isolated here..."

"Isn't it?" Mac agreed with a frown.

Valencia had walked ahead of them towards a cluster of houses. Some were adorned with handwritten signs, fragile wood awnings and raised floorboards that were the local equivalent of front porches.

Storefronts, Robin deducted.

There were groups of people clustered around the fronts of these flimsy structures and they stared at the three strangers approaching. Most of them were shirtless and barefoot. Robin noticed that the men and women were sitting in different clusters. The men were smoking, long wooden pipes, and the women were chatting loudly, some with babies and young children on their laps.

Valencia waited for Mac and Robin to catch up to her. "I'm going to ask them some questions."

"Like what?" Mac wanted to know.

"Like whether they have seen any strangers in town."

"Won't they want to know why you're asking?"

"They know we are cops...believe me...we might as well be wearing signs. They don't trust cops. This is guerrilla country. But they will trust us even less if we pretend to be someone we're not. If we are arrogant enough to think they don't know who we are."

"But won't they have heard about the hunt for Robert?"

"I doubt it..." Valencia answered. "It takes time for news to travel here."

"I don't want word getting back to Medellin that you're digging around for Robert up here...god knows what consequences that'll have for you."

"I know," Valencia acknowledged. "But I don't think you have to worry. The chances are small." She paused as she stared at the cluster of homes ahead of them, where an increasing crowd of people was now gathering to stare at them.

"It is your turn to trust me...okay?" Valencia said softly. "This is my part of the world. If I ever come to New York I promise I will let you do _all _the talking."

Mac grinned. "Deal."

Robin and Mac stood back as they watched Valencia approach the villagers. Watched as they eyed her with curiosity, speaking a Spanish that sounded entirely different from hers.

"I really like her..." Robin mumbled to Mac, not taking her eyes off the exchange that was taking place in front of her.

"She isn't admitting how much of a risk it was for her to come here..." Mac mumbled in return.

Robin noticed that Mac's gaze was focused on Valencia when he spoke, with the same kind of concern he usually reserved for her. He was ready to jump in at the slightest sign of trouble and Robin knew how much it irritated him that he couldn't understand a word of what Valencia was saying. Knew how much it irritated him to let someone else do the legwork. Mac was like her father: a man of action, who wasn't used to sitting on the sidelines.

Robin's mind drifted back to the glance she'd caught Valencia steal in her uncle's direction, back in the car when they were still in Colombia. Because Mac was her uncle, she often forgot how handsome he was. It shouldn't have caught her by surprise to find another woman look at him the way Valencia did.

The thought made her smile.

Mac deserved someone who could appreciate him for the rarity that he was. The kind of man who raised his niece not because it was the right thing to do, but because he wanted to. He was also the kind of man who needed an equal. Someone who could hold her own against his bullheadedness, the way her mother had done for her father.

Robin's smile deepened. She wondered if Valencia Munoz might be up for the challenge.

'It's a crazy idea…' she realized. The idea of her uncle getting involved with a woman who had her own life, half a world away from his. If all went well, they'd leave Panama with her parents and never see Valencia again.

Valencia would probably exhale a sigh of relief to see their backsides.

Still, Robin liked the way Mac looked at Valencia. And she liked the possibilities that crept into her mind each time she caught one of his glances.

_Medellin Police Headquarters_

"What do you mean the plane took off before you got there?"

Juan Dominguez was on the phone with Officer Torres and he couldn't believe the words that were coming from the other end.

"I don't understand…I specifically ordered that pilot to wait for you and Chavez. Under no circumstances was Rigato to go off on his own!"

"I don't care if he's in charge of the damn case! It's madness!"

Juan Dominguez didn't bother to listen to the rest of what Torres had to say. Instead he reacted in a way that was far more Roberto Sandoval than it was Juan Dominguez.

That is, he ended the conversation by slamming down the receiver.

What the hell was Luis Rigato hoping to achieve on his own? The man could barely walk!

"If he screws this up now that we finally have a lead on Sandoval…" Dominguez hissed to no one in his empty office. "Then he's going down so fast he won't have a badge when he comes back."

If only the Commissioner had better sense than to put a man in charge of a case only because the media had turned his getting shot into an act of heroism. Sure, they had created a hero at a time when the force desperately needed one…but could they possibly have chosen a dumber one?

And of course, Rigato had relished in it, for the same reasons he'd taken off in that plane on his own. Because he wanted the glory and the fame. He craved it much the same way as a performer craved the limelight.

Having had a taste of it, he now wanted it all. He wanted to capture Sandoval.

By himself.

'Don't forget revenge,' Dominguez reminded himself. 'Don't forget that Rigato's out to get Sandoval for the countless times he made him look like the fool that he is.'

So caught up was he in all that imagined was going to go wrong next, he had almost forgotten that his two other officers were still at Xavier Airfield, waiting for their next order.

He picked up the phone again to dial Torres' cell phone.

"I want you to get on the next available plane to Yaviza," he ordered him. "I don't care if you have to charter one. I will worry about the payment and the authorization. Just do it! I want you both to get to Rigato before he does something that this entire force will regret!"

This time he managed to end the conversation without slamming down the receiver.

'How did you do it?' he wondered, feeling as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. How had Sandoval managed to lead this force and make impossible decisions every single day without going mad with the frustration of it all?

He sank back into his chair and sighed. While he might have hated Sandoval for putting him into this position, at the same time Dominguez had a grudging new respect for him.

_Yaviza, Panama_

Luis Rigato held on tightly to his seat when the small plane touched down on the dirt runway. It shook and shuddered, like a pebble flown across the beach, touching down sporadically, until coming to a final, harsh, undignified stop. "Yaviza!" the pilot announced with a yell, from the cockpit, as if he were on a multiple destination flight.

"Where's the control tower?" Rigato asked him as he stumbled towards the cockpit.

"Que?"

"The control tower for the airfield," Rigato repeated. Why did the pilot look at him like he was crazy? Was he speaking Greek?

The pilot responded with a laugh. "You are looking at the control tower of Yaviza Airfield."

Rigato shook his head in irritation. This wasn't possible. His blood pressure rose at the thought of being unable to track Munoz. "Someone must keep track of incoming and outgoing flights!"

"Sir, this is not an airport. It's a landing strip in the middle of the jungle."

"But there must be some way to find out what planes come and go from here!" There _had_ to be. No matter how small a landing strip this was, weren't there international laws that governed all commercial flights? Planes couldn't just come and go with no one having a clue as to where they went. Or could they?

The pilot pointed to a fuelling station that jutted out from the end of the runway. "The fuel station is manned. If anyone knows the coming and goings of this strip it will be whoever runs the fuel station."

"Drive up to it," Rigato ordered.

The pilot frowned and he did as told, taxiing the small aircraft to the fuel station.

Rigato exhaled. It was possible that Munoz and the two others were still in Yaviza. But it was also possible that they left to continue their journey as soon as they arrived. If they did, he would need to hang on to the plane.

He was so close to Sandoval now.

Luis Rigato ran his fingers over the gun that sat in the holster, attached to his belt. He had rarely used it during his tenure on the force. Maybe if there wasn't so mch paperwork that needed to be filled out following every bullet out of every officer's gun, that wouldn't have been the case. Of course Colombian laws didn't apply here. Dominguez himself had reminded him of that fact.

The thought put a smile on Luis Rigato's face.

_Near Payita, Panama_

Robert wiped his tears with a shaking hand. Not just his hand. His entire body was shaking so hard Robert struggled to breathe.

All of it. It was all too much.

The fall. Anna still unconscious in his arms. _The memories._

_Get a grip. _

_This is not the time to lose it. _

He closed his eyes shut tight and forced himself to leave the past behind.

_Breathe. _

_In. Out. _

_Slowly. _

Opening his eyes again, he focused on Anna, who still wouldn't wake up.

"Come on, luv...wake up."

Hearing his own voice helped to stop his limbs from shaking. So he kept talking.

"You're not going to believe what happened..." he went on, hoping she'd hear somehow. "It came back to me. Everything. I remembered." He managed a meagre smile..."You have no idea how much I want to tell you..."

"Maybe that's what I needed...a crash down a hillside and a conk on the head...if I'd have known I'd have done that much sooner...because what I remembered is so incredible, Anna. I remembered our first wedding in Italy...I remembered our little girl..."

_That_ realization hit him now too.

That Robin wasn't just his daughter. She was _their _daughter.

"Why didn't you tell me, Anna?" he asked softly looking down at her, as he ran a hand across her forehead gently brushing aside a long, muddy strand of hair. Would things have been different had he known she was the mother of his child? Would he have believed her? "Why, Anna? Why?"

His voice was steadier now. He was still trembling but no longer so violently that it shook his entire body.

_You don't have time for questions now. You're a fugitive on the run from the law. In guerrilla territory in the middle of the damn jungle. You're hurt and Anna is unconscious. _

_Do something!_

"I did not get my memory back so I can lose you...because that would be a whole other level of cruel and unfair..."

Maybe if he'd kept a closer eye on her, this wouldn't have happened.

"I should've forced you to slow down...I should've done _something_."

But that kind of indulgent guilt was pointless too.

He bent down to kiss her forehead. "You _are_ going to wake up, luv. I don't care how hard it is for you...I am not going to lose you again. You're not giving up after everything we've been through. I'm sorry...but giving up is not an option."

Robert exhaled, forcing himself to think. He was used to staying calm under pressure and there was never a moment he needed that skill as much as he did now.

_Think, damn it. Think! _

Payita was less than a few miles from here but he couldn't leave Anna alone while he went for help.

The forest ahead of them was so dense it would have been a challenging hike in the best of circumstances, never mind in his current state.

He lifted up Anna's wrist to check the time on his watch.

It was already late afternoon. They would have only a few more hours of sunlight, after which they'd be covered in a darkness so dense they wouldn't be able to see their hands in front of their faces.

He had to do _something_. Anna's life depended on it.

He nudged his arms underneath her body, so that she was cradling in them.

"I'd really like you to wake up just about now...because I'm not sure I can support my own weight, never mind both of ours."

It was absurd to think he could carry her for a few miles through this jungle.

Except, there was no other option.

With Anna in his arms, and a strength he didn't think he had, Robert stood up.

And started walking.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter XXV**

_On the Panama border_

Anna was pure deadweight in his arms. The pull of her weight threatened to tear them from their sockets.

Robert's arms had gone numb hours ago and now the only sensation he could still feel was that constant, thankless fight against gravity. Gravity that threatened to pull her weight down to the ground while his willpower kept her above it.

'It's a fight that I'm gonna win,' he mumbled to Anna without looking down. Looking at her meant losing focus of the vegetation beneath his feet. The last thing he needed was to trip and fall with Anna in his arms.

He had been walking for most of the last two hours. He knew because his Rolex dangled on Anna's wrist and every time he took a moment to catch his breath, he stole a glance at it.

Sweat drenched his clothing and Robert could feel it, running down his back and pooling in the nape of his neck.

'Just a little longer...' he thought, glancing over Anna and into the ground below, gingerly advancing over the rough terrain.

Robert knew that once he set her down, he wouldn't be able to pick her back up and continue. It would be a physical impossibility.

Where and when he stopped was where they would spend the night.

A night without shelter and without food or water.

While Anna was still unconscious.

The thoughts sent a shiver up his spine, cooling the sweat that dribbled down it. Without shelter or water it would take a small miracle to make it through the night. And then an even bigger miracle to bring them to Payita.

Payita was nothing more than a collection of huts in the middle of the jungle. A guerrila pit stop.

There would most likely be no doctor to tend to Anna.

The pressure of Anna's weight pulled at his arms again as if she'd somehow gained a couple of pounds in the last few minutes.

Was it possible that she was heavier now than five minutes ago? Or was it that his arms were increasingly useless, like rubber, incapable of supporting their own weight, let alone someone else's?

He stole another glance downward at Anna's, shocked this time by what he saw.

She was drawing her arm towards her face.

"Anna?"

Robert dropped to his knees and Anna nearly slipped out of his arms.

His arms shook with the strain of holding on to her and Robert clumsily set her down on the damp ground.

Taking one of her hands between the two of his, he rubbed her fingers vigorously feeling the numbness fade from his own fingers in the process, "Come on, sweetheart! Wake up!"

Once they were no longer completely numb, his moved his fingers to her cheek, rubbing them, a smile lighting up his face when he heard her groan.

Anna's eyes opened suddenly and she blinked several times before staring at him with a look of confusion.

"Robert..." she mumbled, slurring his name.

She was coming back to him.

He didn't think it was possible to feel such an enormous sense of relief.

_It's going to okay._

_I can handle whatever happens next if you're with me. _

Tears had filled his eyes without his consent, clouding them while Anna slowly focused hers.

"Robert...?" she asked, confused.

"It's okay." He pulled her into his arms, knowing he'd never let go again.

Then he kissed her.

"It's gonna be okay, luv." He brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Everthing's going to be okay."

"What…what did you say?" her voice was low. She sounded like someone struggling to wake up, who wasn't quite sure yet what they were saying, or how exactly it sounded in their ears.

"You're back. It's gonna be okay."

Her hand weakly grasped at his shirt, scrunching it up in her fingers, "Not that…you called me 'luv'. It's what…"

"It's what I used to call you, I know…" he finished for her. "You and Robin."

Anna's fingers released their hold on him and she moved back in shock, pulling away from him.

"Hey…take it easy," Robert chided her.

"How do you know…?"

"I remembered."

" 'You _remembered_?' " Anna's eyes widened. "You had another memory?"

"No…" Robert shook his head, torn between elation and concern. He wanted to tell her about every single thing he remembered. Even his exhaustion took a sudden back seat to the fact that he couldn't wait to share it all with the one person who made up the bulk of his memories. But at the same time he had to know whether she was alright. "Not one memory," he tried to explain. "_Everything_."

Anna stared at him in disbelief. "_Everything_?"

"Anna, do you remember falling down the hill?"

"Yeah…" A subtle smile raised her lips as she nodded, her eyes focused and aware now. "I'm not the one with amnesia."

"I crashed down the hill after you," he told her, noticing with relief that her voice was clearer now. "After I landed I think I was out of it for a bit."

She didn't say anything, waiting for him to go on.

"And when I woke up…"

Robert paused, debating whether to tell her the entire truth. That it wasn't the fall that brought back the flood of memories. That the trigger was something more disturbing. Something he wouldn't mind wiping from his memory.

_Seeing you lying on the ground completely still and realising that I might have…_

"Then what happened?" she prompted, bringing him back. Disoriented as she was, Robert could swear that Anna sensed that he was leaving something out.

"I came to…and when I did, I remembered." _God, where did he start?_ "I remembered our wedding. The one you told me about, after the beach…"

Anna bit her lip, "You did?"

"That was just the beginning. Afterwards, it felt like I was drowning. Drowning in images and thoughts…drowning in decades of memories. It was so…_incredible_." There was no other way to explain it.

One of Anna's hands squeezed his, and the back of her other one wiped a tear from her face. "It must have overwhelmed you."

Robert chuckled, "I remembered so much, Anna…I thought that maybe it would be too much…that my mind couldn't handle it all and that I'd go crazy in the process…I remembered so many people. Holly, Luke, Filomena, Katherine…I didn't just remember them, I _knew_ who they were. Even more than that, I knew what they meant to me…" He paused, grateful that she was squeezing his hand. Grateful that the pressure of flesh against flesh meant he wasn't dreaming.

"I remembered our daughter, Anna, " he told her. "Why, Anna…? Why didn't you tell me the truth?" He could envision Robin again, not when she was a little girl this time, standing in his living room, but a teenager, saying goodbye to him before he left to search for her mother. "And how, in god's name, is it possible that I couldn't remember her all these years? Our beautiful daughter…what kind of a father doesn't remember his own child?"

The guilt and regret hit him again and the sheer force of it left him breathless.

_Was it always going to be like this? Were the memories always going to be so…strong?_

He felt Anna's arms around him and for the first time since meeting her in Medellin, was he aware of the love behind the gesture. Anna loved him. She loved him as much now as she did that day they made love on the beach.

_How could I not have noticed it before?_

"It's not your fault, Robert…don't blame yourself for something you had no control over."

'What now…?' he wanted to ask. It was all such a mess. Such a crazy, inconceivable mess.

He held on to Anna and he saw her freeing one of her arms in to press a hand against her temple, shutting her eyes in obvious discomfort

The gesture jolted him back to the present.

What the hell was he thinking? Wasting precious time on guilt and regret, when their current situation was more pressing than anything his newfound memories might be tormenting him with.

Anna was hurt. It was getting dark. They had absolutely no supplies. He couldn't even offer Anna a sip of water.

Both of them were utterly exhausted.

"Jesus Christ, Anna…what am I thinking?" he moved his hand to cover hers, gently moving it away from her eyes so he could read them. "I haven't even asked you how you are."

"I'll be okay…" she answered. "You have no idea how much it means to have you look at me like…you _know_ me."

"Anna…tell me the truth."

"The truth?" Anna gave him a lopsided smile. "I feel awful. _Everything_ hurts. Waking up seemed impossibly hard…just like it was this morning."

Robert kissed her forehead, "You were out of it for awhile. You scared the hell out of me."

"How long have we been here, at the foot of the hill?"

"We're not at the foot of the hill anymore…"

She looked at him, puzzled. "Robert, I don't understand."

"You wouldn't wake up. I couldn't just let you lie there unconscious and not do anything."

Anna still didn't understand, "But what could you have done?"

"I started walking."

"_Walking_?" Anna turned around, scanning the area around them, as if taking in her surroundings for the first time since coming to. "You couldn't have carried me…that's not possible, not in this terrain." Her gaze, followed by her hand, went towards his shoulder. "Robert, that's crazy. Your shoulder…oh god, Robert…"

He hadn't noticed it until she pointed it out. That his entire upper sleeve was covered in dried blood. "I'm sure it's worse than it looks 'cause I can't feel a thing. But there is something else that scares me. In order to carry you I had to leave the packs behind and it's getting dark..."

Her face paled at the realization of what _that_ meant. "How…how far are we from Payita?"

"I think we're close. If we make it there before nightfall we stand a chance."

She eyed him as if already knowing what he would ask her next.

"Can you walk?"

"I don't know…"

"Come on, luv." He held his hands out to her, helping her up.

She stood unsteadily at first, standing upright only because he supported most of her weight, but he didn't give her the chance to consider the other option.

He started walking, slowly and cautiously, with one of her arms draped over his shoulder, praying that eventually her legs, not his, would support the bulk of her weight.

A couple of dozen steps later, they did.

He wanted to tell her how much he admired her just then. But neither of them had the energy for words.

They had to keep moving forward.

Towards Payita.

_Yaviza, Panama_

"What do you mean they chartered a helicopter?" Luis Rigato asked the dark-skinned man at the fuelling station of Yaviza's airstrip.

"It's the easiest way to get around in these parts," the man explained. "A lot of jungle villages don't have airstrips, or they have airstrips that flood during the rainy season. So Pablito, he has this helicopter that anyone can charter…but only in Panama. He doesn't do runs into Colombia. He's one hundred percent legit."

"Look, I don't give a…I'm not a damn coke smuggler" Rigato restrained himself. The man knew he was a cop. Not that he'd made any efforts to hide that fact. But half the cops in Colombia had their fingers in the drug trade, he couldn't really blame the man for assuming he'd be part of that half. "Do you know where they went?"

A slow smile spread over the man's face. "Sorry. He doesn't share his travel plans with me. I just put the fuel in the bird."

Rigato gritted his teeth and pulled out a US fifty dollar bill. Easily a week's salary in this part of the world. "Maybe you accidentally overheard something? Yes?"

"I'm sorry…" The man's smile widened, "My hearing's not so good anymore. I'm sorry officer but I can't help you."

Rigato could've arrested him then and there. For obstruction of justice. To hell with jurisdictions and legalities. But he didn't need this kind of hassle when he was this close to the goal. Instead, he pulled out another fifty. "How about your memory? How good is that?"

The two bills were snatched from his hand with a speed that shocked Luis Rigato.

"I think I remember hearing something about a town called Payita."

This time it was Rigato who smiled, "Now how about getting in touch with that chopper and seeing if he can do a return trip?"

_Payita, Panama_

Robin Scorpio yawned and checked the time on her watch. The illuminated numbers were the only source of light in the room she was lying in.

If you could call it that. A room, that is.

Normally rooms had four walls. This one only had three.

The fourth side was fully exposed to the open night air and when Robin pushed her elbow into the ground she'd been lying on, to prop herself up, she caught the remnants of a fire burning in the distance. There was also the shadowy outline of a hen walking past it.

She stole another glance at her illuminated watch face, only now taking in the time.

_4:57am._

She yawned again.

She couldn't see Mac or Valencia. It was too dark for that. But she could hear her uncle's soft snores several feet away from her. Valencia was quiet and Robin wondered whether she too was wide-awake, or whether she'd been able to catch a few hours of much needed sleep.

Valencia was the one who had negotiated this room for them. It was part of a two-room house, whose inhabitants were asleep in the room next to them. A family of eight. Two boys normally slept where they now were, on the ground of the semi-open kitchen next to the stove.

But tonight they had retreated to the other room.

In exchange for the two t-shirts and three packs of gum Valencia had offered them.

'I should take you with me next time I try to book a friend one of those ridiculously overpriced hotels in Paris...' Robin thought with a smirk.

She had no idea what they would have done without Valencia's help. The woman had a career and a young son back in Medellin, and here she was, sleeping on the mud floor of an open kitchen with her and Mac. Hoping that somehow they'd run into her parents.

Their whole plan was based on countless fragile assumptions. Now that Robin had given it some rational thought at the crack of dawn, she wanted to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all.

They had no way of knowing for sure whether this was the route her parents had taken.

Whether they had already passed through Payita.

Or if they hadn't, that they'd be here long enough to catch them.

They didn't have even know the most basic facts.

Like whether or not her parents were still alive.

"Stop it..." Robin scolded herself aloud, suddenly shivering in the warm night air.

_5:02am._

Her watchface was bright in the darkness, countering her morbid thoughts with persistent Swiss reliability.

Robin sat up against the mud wall of the kitchen. She gave up on the notion of sleep. Instead, she'd wait until the first rays of sun appeared and then, in spite of Mac's repeated instructions to not leave his sight, she would get up and go for an early morning walk.

_Payita, Panama_

Robert Scorpio wasn't entirely sure how they had made it to Payita last night.

He knew they had walked several hours before reaching the village, not because his Rolex told them, but because when they did arrive the night sky was already pitch-black. If it hadn't been for a nearly full moon and cooking fires burning in the distance: they might have missed Payita altogether.

Robert shuddered to think what _that _might have meant for them.

'Death,' he realized. 'We wouldn't have survived another 24 hours out there. Not in our state and not without supplies.'

Instead they had walked into the first dwelling they spotted; a large round house near the edge of the jungle, away from the cluster of houses that made up the bulk of the village.

Hurt, exhausted, dehydrated and bordering on delirious, they must have been a frightening sight for the family of at least half a dozen that lived in the house.

Robert had told them they were refugees from Colombia, fleeing the guerrilla violence in the hills, like hundreds of other Colombians before them. He told them that two of them had nearly been captured by rebel guerrillas and escaped with only the clothes on their backs. It was a plausible story, and given the family's reaction, Robert deducted they weren't the first Colombians to stream out of the jungle and into their home.

He told them Anna was his wife. That she couldn't speak Spanish because she was American. He was too tired to think whether that made any sense given his refugee story.

A frail old woman fussed over them as three little children watched her wide-eyed. She made a face when she saw his shoulder wound and Anna's cuts and bruises. She was about to cover them all in a thick gooey paste had Robert not protested. He also remembered that old woman gave them a warm clear broth to drink and blankets to cover them, but the rest of his recollection was blurry.

He only vaguely remembered lying down. Vaguely remembered Anna falling asleep next to him. Vaguely remembered his futile attempt to stay awake because he was afraid she might not wake up again. Afraid too, that sleep would rob him of all the memories he'd gained.

But not only could he not evade sleep, it had come with astonishing speed. Robert was certain it had hit him before he closed his eyes.

Now a sliver of sunlight pressed through the hut they were in, its tip landing on his cheek, warming it.

Robert opened his eyes, taking a moment to remember where he was.

Payita. Panama. Inside a dirt-poor family's home. A family who had done what virtually no family in a Western city would have done given their appearance last night. They had taken them in and offered them food and shelter. Without question.

Robert turned around to see Anna still asleep next to him. He was tempted to try and wake her, only because he wanted to see her awake, knowing it would give him the sense of relief he craved. But, looking at her fast asleep, one of her arms lazily draped over his thigh, he didn't have the heart. It was early morning and they'd only slept a few hours. They both desperately needed the rest.

He probably should have tried to go back to sleep too, but he knew if would be an exercise in futility. His shoulder throbbed and his back ached. He wasn't sure whether it was from sleeping on the bare, earthen floor, from carrying Anna yesterday or from the earlier tumble he took down the hillside.

'Probably a combination of all three…' he thought, cringing at the soreness as he stood up, placing Anna's arm on the ground with one hand while massaging his lower back with the other. As if that wasn't enough to keep him awake, the goats, chickens and pigs that roamed around outside were making enough noise to wake the entire town. It was a small marvel that Anna was still asleep.

For about five seconds he longed for his quiet, gated bungalow outside of Medellin, but a second glance at Anna pushed the image from his mind.

It wasn't just the noise and the pain that kept him from sleep.

The sense of elation that electrified him had something to do with it as well.

They did it.

He had made it across the border. He'd regained his memory.

As exhausted, as he had been last night, a part of him had feared that he would go to sleep and wake up to find the memories gone. Yet it was the opposite. For the first time in years, Robert woke up knowing exactly who he was.

He was Robert Scorpio. Cop. Husband. Brother. Father.

The knowledge weakened and strengthened him all at once. It made him vulnerable, because his decisions were no longer based on not what could guarantee his immediate survival, but theirs.

"My family…" he mumbled the words aloud, wanting to laugh. They sounded so surreal coming from his lips.

The responsibility of having a family was more daunting than that of having an entire police force depend on the wisdom of his choices.

His eyes drifted back to Anna, still asleep.

Loving someone made you careful. Robert was beginning to remember that too now.

All these emotions were both foreign and familiar to him. They toyed with him, coming at him when least expected, as if to see how he'd tolerate them all.

Putting someone else's welfare before his had weakened his survival instincts. Throwing away his pack to carry Anna was ample proof of that, but at the same time it was powerful motivator.

He had to stay alive. Not for himself. But for Anna. And Robin.

Robert stretched his aching muscles. It was quiet in the dwelling. Still too early in the morning for anyone to get up, even for rural farmers that were used to rising with the first rays of the sun.

Aside from the noisy chatter of animals, there was no sound of human activity coming from the village.

It would be a good time to take a walk around it and get his bearings.

It would be best if they found a way to leave the village before the day ended. It was much too close to the border for Robert's liking. But Robert knew that was an unreasonable expectation. Neither of them had the strength nor the energy to keep going. They had to rest at least for a day.

He debated once more, whether or not to wake Anna before stepping outside. Wondering if waking up and not finding him here would frighten her.

'Don't flatter yourself,' he thought with a grin. 'It'll take more than that to scare you, right luv?'

Robert rubbed his beard with his hand as he stumbled out of the house and onto a dirt road that lead to a cluster of other homes. The village centre, he suspected.

He must have looked as awful as he felt. Dirty and ragged.

'Like someone who just spent days walking through the jungle…'

He needed a bath and a shave almost as much as he needed a full night's sleep. Maybe there would be some way to squeeze in both during the course of the day.

Walking into the village he saw it slowly stir to life.

The sun's rays broke through the eastern horizon with a brightness that surprised Robert. It would be daylight in minutes, he suspected.

Robert took in everything around him, trying to get a sense of where he was.

A soft morning mist rose from the trees that surrounded the village, reminding him that they were still in the jungle. There was no noticeable reason as to why people would have settled here. No bend in the river or any body of water for that matter. It was nothing more than a clearing in the endless jungle, filled with a scattering of huts and homes, where its inhabitants had once, and some of them still, eked out a subsistence living by farming and hunting.

It was humid already and once the sun's glare was out in full force, it would be unbearably hot. The jungle clearing would offer none of the protective shade that the constant canopy of trees had given him the past two days.

Robert spotted a house that looked it could be a store or a supply depot. Guerrillas from both sides of the border would come here for one last taste of normal civilization before disappearing into the jungle hills around them, often for weeks or months at a time.

Robert wondered if the village had a doctor or at least a nurse, although, in his experience most guerrilla camps came equipped with their own medical staff. He made a mental note to ask the family in whose home they'd slept last night.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted an old man throwing food into a throng of greedy chickens, oblivious to his presence. Further in the distance, he saw two scrawny stray dogs fighting over what looked like a piece of meat. He was too distracted by the tussling animals to notice a young woman emerge from the cluster of houses in the centre of the village.

It was only when she was a few feet away from him, that she caught his full attention.

The young woman looked as lost as he was. Ambling aimlessly around the village, her Western clothes making her stick out like a sore thumb.

Robert focused his gaze on her, noticing that as soon as he did, she stopped dead in her tracks.

She was staring at him.

Her eyes, _Anna's eyes_, widened and she moved a trembling hand to her mouth in shock.

_"Dad?"_


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter XXVI **

_Payita, Panama_

When Robin Scorpio first saw him she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her.

She that maybe she hadn't walked out of the shack she'd slept in after all. That she had only dreamt that she did. And that in that dream she saw a strange, nearly unrecognizable image of her father walking across the road in front of her.

A moment of silence passed between them. One that probably lasted only seconds, even though to her it felt like an endless gap in time. An eternity, in which it took her brain infinitely longer to grasp what her heart knew instinctively.

That it wasn't a dream.

It was then that she moved a hand to her mouth in shock and whispered the only word that would come from her lips.

_"Dad?"_

The man with the torn, dirty clothes and the week-old beard smiled.

"Hi, Robin."

"Dad…" she repeated the word like a fool, for lack of anything else to say. Robin thought she'd stored a million questions in her brain for precisely this moment and now she couldn't bring herself to ask a single one.

"I missed you," was what her father said.

"Dad…I…" she was smiling and crying at the same time. She hadn't noticed that her father had walked towards her, and that his arms were around her now.

Her father.

Alive.

Here. Now.

He didn't say anything. Not that he had to. The way he held her answered at least one of her questions.

It wasn't his choice to leave them. It couldn't have been. Robin was certain of it.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled into her ears, not letting go of her. The sound of his voice gave her goose bumps. Hearing it again after so many years felt surreal. "I'm so sorry, luv."

"I missed you so much, Dad."

"I know." He kissed her forehead and let her bury her face in his embrace. For an instant, she was six-years old again and her father was still invincible. A towering force of love that would never let anything or anyone harm her. Her life might have been full of uncertainties, but her father's love for her was never one of them.

"You're hurt…" she realized, pulling out from his embrace, trying to control her tears. She wasn't six years old, damn it. She was an adult. An adult with a million questions who couldn't find a way to voice a single one.

It didn't matter really. What mattered was the fact that her father stood in front of her and he needed her.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she let them fully soak in the sight of him.

He was thinner than in the recent photos she had seen on the Internet and in the papers. The scar that ran along his chin was hidden by a beard. Cuts and bruises ran along his face and arms and when she took a closer look she saw that it wasn't dirt that covered his shirt near his shoulder, but blood. Dried blood.

"Robin…what in the world are you doing here?"

Robin ignored the question, trying to imagine what he'd been through these past few days, wincing at the sheer amount of blood she saw. "Dad…you're hurt."

"I'll be okay, luv. Tell me why you're here."

The question jolted her back to reality. To the reason why she'd come to South America in the first place. "Where's Mom?" she demanded, a sense of panic rising in her throat when she realized her father was here alone. "Is she okay?"

"She's okay, Robin," he told her. "She's not in great shape, but I think she'll be okay. She's sleeping."

A lump formed in her throat. "Take me to her."

"Of course," he put an arm around her shoulder, and started to walk with her. "Come with me."

The combination of his voice and his touch were stronger than her resolve, and in spite of herself, Robin felt the tears running down her face again.

She smiled in the early morning sunlight as she walked down the dirt road.

With her father.

_Payita, Panama_

"Robin!" Mac yelled. He wasn't fully awake yet. "Robin?" His first waking glance had been in her direction and when he didn't see her in the spot where she'd fallen asleep, a surge of panic jolted him into wakefulness.

"Mac…?" Valencia mumbled, rubbing her eyes awake. "_Que pasa_?"

"Robin…" he explained, throwing off a wool blanket and getting up off the dirt ground he'd been sleeping on. "She's gone."

"Gone?" Valencia yawned. "What do you mean she is gone?"

"Gone as in not here!"

Irritation replaced the sleepiness on Valencia's face, "I understand that much English."

"I told her to not leave my sight," Mac mumbled, peering into the next room to see if he could spot her there. "I insisted and she did it anyway. That is such an Anna thing to do…"

Valencia jumped up to grab his arm before he had a chance to go anywhere. "Mac, stop it! You are acting crazy!" She glared at him. "Robin is not twelve years old. Maybe she could not sleep and went outside to walk around. Or maybe she…"

Mac watched her fish for the words. Obviously it was too early in the morning for English. "Maybe she had to go…to the bathroom, and she did not feel like waking us up to tell us that!"

"Or maybe she decided to do something crazy, like search the village for her parents at five in the morning!"

Valencia shrugged. "Why is that so crazy?"

"Why? You're asking me why a young woman knocking on doors, on the homes that happen to have them, in a village that's a guerrilla pit stop at 5am isn't crazy?"

Valencia rolled her eyes. "Mac…stop it. Wait and I will help you look for her. When we find her outside feeding the chickens, then I will slap you."

The comment elicited an involuntary chuckle. Valencia was right. He was overreacting. Robin wasn't an idiot. If she wasn't here there had to be a reasonable explanation. "I'm sorry…" he mumbled. "It's just that…"

"I know. I'm a parent too." Then she smiled, amused. "Except I'm more cool and less crazy."

"I bet," Mac admitted, feeling himself relax. Valencia had a way of doing that. Of easing the tension from his shoulders.

"Come," she nudged him once she got up. "Let us go find Robin."

_On the outskirts of Payita_

"You haven't told me how you came here…" Robert asked her again, observing his daughter. He had to make a conscious effort not to stare at her.

He had to refrain from pulling her into a hug each time he caught her wiping away a tear with the back of her hand.

_Don't push it. Don't push her._

Robin was just as he remembered her. Only more beautiful. Gone was the teenage awkwardness, replaced by a soft, delicate beauty that would turn heads no matter where she went. Even more captivating than that, was the warmth in her eyes. The way they lit up when she smiled, and the way they told him all the things she didn't say aloud.

'You have Anna's eyes,' he realized. Anna had told him that Robin had his smile, but she neglected to mention that his daughter had her eyes.

He could have looked at them all day long.

Robert forced himself to look straight ahead. As if his appearance alone wasn't frightening enough, he didn't need to make her question his mental stability as well. Not during their first moments together in over a decade.

Robin was silent on their walk back to the house, where Anna was still asleep.

Until now, when she stopped dead in her tracks, and turned to face him.

"There's something I have to know…" she said with sudden urgency. "Before anything else…before we see Mom, I need to know why, Dad. Why did you lead a perfectly normal life here…in South America, while you let us believe you were dead?"

Where initially he'd seen only joy and relief in her eyes, he saw other emotions now. Traces of anger. Bitterness.

'I can't blame you for that,' he thought.

"It's a long story, Robin," he managed. "I'm not sure where to start. I want to tell you everything…but not here. Not like this."

Her beautiful face was unreadable. "Just tell me one thing…confirm something for me, Dad. Did you know what happened to Mom after the explosion? Did you know that I thought you were both dead?"

"No, luv. I had no idea," he told her, hating that words alone couldn't erase the doubt he caught in her eyes. "I didn't know anything after the explosion. You have to believe that, Robin. I didn't know my name or where I came from. I was picked up, barely alive, by a Columbian fishing boat and brought to Cartagena. I recovered from my injuries but I didn't regain my memory."

The doubt was still there when she tilted her head back to look him in the eye, "But you know me now. So at some point you remembered then?"

"Would you believe me if I told you I started to remember yesterday?"

Tears had pooled at the rim of her eyes again and this time she didn't bother to wipe them away. Her eyes squinted in the sunlight. All around them the village was waking up. Men and women emerged from the wooden houses, with shirtless, barefoot kids in tow. Some of them were watching the exchange between him and Robin, with curious interest.

"I'm not sure what to believe right now, Dad."

'I don't blame you…' he thought. "Maybe your mother can explain the last few days better than I can." Anna wouldn't have to lie when she told her daughter of his initial reactions to seeing her. It made him feel sick now to think of how he'd treated her.

"I hope you'll forgive me for some of the things I did when I first saw her…"

Robin looked at him puzzled, not understanding. "I just want to see her."

Robert nodded, remembering too that his daughter still hadn't explained how she'd come to Payita. She was as evasive as her mother. "Me too," he replied, nudging her towards the lone house at the edge of the rainforest. "Let's go."

_Yaviza, Panama_

"Is it light enough now?" Luis Rigato groaned as he stood next to the helicopter on the village's airstrip.

He'd gotten up with the first rays of sunlight, his fury from the night before lessened after a few hours of half decent sleep. He'd slept in a hut that belonged to a local pilot, who hadn't been there in weeks.

Rigato had simply broken the hut's lock and confiscated it for the night. There was no food inside and the air was stale. But, thanks to a septic tank outside its walls, it had a luxury few others homes around here had: a toilet and running water. Those two alone had served to help his mood after the chopper pilot told him that it was too dark to fly to Payita last night.

Rigato was certain that by now Dominguez's men would have arrived here as well and that he'd be forced to join forces with them as they went to Payita together to hunt down Sandoval.

He'd retrieved several threatening messages on his phone from Dominguez, reminding him to stay put until they arrived. Obviously, Juan Dominguez had forgotten who was in charge of the Sandoval case.

Truth be told, he needed the reinforcements. Rigato knew as much. Trying to capture Sandoval alone in his current physical state was madness. Unless he shot him at first sight, he would barely stand a chance, especially if that woman was still with him.

Yet, at the same time he knew that this was it. He _had_ to be the one to get Sandoval first. It was his one shot at glory.

And glory wasn't something you shared three ways.

Luis Rigato clenched his walking stick.

Dominquez's men were still nowhere in sight. Maybe they'd faced the same dilemma he had. Perhaps it had not only been too dark for him to fly out of Yaviza, perhaps it was also too dark for them to fly in. After all, it wasn't as though the airstrip he now stood on was equipped with runway lights.

"_Estas listo_?" the helicopter pilot asked him.

The chopper was finally ready to take him to Payita.

He really should wait for the arrival of Dominguez's men, Luis Rigato reminded himself.

He took one look at the pilot and smiled, "Of course I'm ready. Let's go."

_Payita, Panama_

The audible sigh of relief Robin Scorpio breathed when she saw her mother sleeping on the floor of the wood house was quickly cut short when she saw her bruised face.

"Mom…?" she whispered, moving a hand to her mouth in shock.

Robin felt her father's hand on her shoulder, reassuring her. "It's been a rough walk through the jungle."

Robin knelt down next to her mother, squeezing her arms in an attempt to wake her, "Mom…wake up. It's me…"

Her mother stirred in her sleep, responsive to her touch but not enough to wake up.

Robin ran a finger along her mother's cheek, wincing at its purple swelling. She didn't want to know what caused it or how much it hurt. She turned back to her father, not sure she wanted to know exactly what they'd been through these last few days that had made them look they way they did.

_What the hell were you thinking, Mom?_

She hadn't noticed that there were tears falling down her face again. Or that her father was squeezing her mother's arm.

"Anna, wake up, luv."

This time her mother groaned and she opened her eyes slowly, narrowing them to focus on what was in front of her.

She obviously couldn't believe what she saw. "Robin?"

Robin threw her arms around her, oblivious to her earlier anger and to everyone else in the room, including three little kids that were watching them. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you, Mom."

Anna returned her hug with surprising strength, pulling her into her embrace, and in that one instant everything was alright. Her parents were both in the same room with her. _Alive._

"Robin…what on Earth are you doing here?"

Robin smirked, "All things considered, I thought you might be happy to see me."

Anna's eyes darted between Robert and Robin, before turning back to her daughter, "You've seen…?"

"Dad?" Robin glanced at her father. "Yeah. You could say you're only the second person this morning that I never thought I'd see again."

Anna widened her eyes, fully awake now. "Sweetheart, tell me how you got here!"

"Your friend Spencer was worried about you," Robin told her. "So he paid me a visit in Paris."

"You came here with Spencer Gooding?" Anna asked her in disbelief.

"Not here. To Medellin, yes…but he didn't stick around. I think Mac scared him off."

_"Mac?"_

Robin thought she saw her mother cringe.

"My brother is here?" Robert chimed in. "In Panama?"

Robin nodded. "Here in Payita." She looked at her mother. "At first Spencer tried to get me to keep everything secret, mostly to keep himself safe, I think. But I was worried sick about you…and Mac had come to Paris to help me find you and he caught me sneaking out of my apartment to meet with Spencer. So I told him everything Spencer had told me. And he agreed to come to Colombia with me, to do whatever it took to get you out of jail…"

Regret was etched on her mother's face. "Robin…I'm sorry for how this whole mess affected you. For worrying you and Mac, scaring you…I never intended to…"

"To what?" Robin raised her eyebrows. "Get caught? _By Dad_?"

Anna smiled a lopsided smile. "No. To hurt you."

Robin ran a finger along her mother's bruised cheek. "I'm not the one who's hurt."

"What I did was selfish," Anna countered. "Never mind that it was unbelievably stupid." She planted a kiss on her forehead. "I'm sorry, sweetheart."

"I'm hoping at some point I get a better explanation." Robin eyed her father. "But, for now what matters is that you found, Dad. Or he found you."

"Yeah…" Anna too turned towards her father with a look in her eyes that Robin hadn't seen in over a decade. "You could say it was almost worth it."

Robert chuckled in return, "Almost, huh?"

"Where's Mac?" Anna asked Robin. "We need to see him. He can help us get out of here."

"But you're safe now, aren't you?" Robin questioned. "You made it out of Colombia. They can't follow you to Panama and arrest you here, can they?"

"Crossing the border was only the first hurdle," Robert explained. "We're still much too close to it. If the Medellin Police sends officers here to follow our trail, Panama can easily extradite us back to Colombia. Given all the guerrilla war refugees that pour into Panama, their relations with Colombia are strained enough as it is. The last thing they need is to squabble over a wanted fugitive. Trust me, I'm one person they'd gladly turn over to the Colombian police."

"But getting out of Panama is the easy part, isn't it?"

"Papers," Robert explained. "We need to get fake documents that will let us leave the country."

Robin observed her mother as she stood up, noticing that she leaned against the shaky wall that surrounded them, as if she might not have kept her balance otherwise.

"Mom…?"

But her father's arms were already steadying her, wrapped around her waist. "Maybe you should sit back down, luv."

Anna shook her head stubbornly, "I'm fine."

The sight of her parents sent a chill up Robin's spine. Here they were talking of leaving Panama and obtaining forged documents, when really, they could barely stand up. Her father's shoulder wound looked ghastly and he was so pale Robin wondered how long he'd be able to keep going. Her mother barely looked any better. 'They should be in a hospital,' Robin realized.

She bit her lip. "What exactly happened to you?"

"We're okay, Robin…" her mother reiterated.

Robin threw her arms up into the air in frustration. "Stop it!" she yelled. "Stop treating me like I'm an idiot who can't see what's right in front of her!"

"Robin…"

"She's right," Robert interrupted before Anna had a chance to say anything. "We need to be honest." At the same time he had moved over to her mother, making her sit back down, in a gesture was forceful and gentle all at once. "Let me talk to her…"

Robin marvelled that her mother didn't protest. Robin felt one of her father's arms around her shoulder, " Let's go outside for a minute."

"I forgot that…" she mumbled.

"Forgot what?" her father asked, his hearing still as sharp as ever.

It all felt so strange. To have him standing next to her. To feel his skin and listen to his voice. Her father's voice. She still expected to wake up and find herself back in her little Parisian apartment. Except no dream had ever felt this real.

"I forget that you're the only one who could ever make Mom listen to reason."

Robert chuckled, "You might not have said that a few days ago."

"Is she okay, Dad?" Robin pressed him, unwilling to let him change the topic.

"Sweetheart," he said softly, his face as serious as hers now. "Your mother and I barely made it here alive yesterday. Neither of us are okay. But reminding us of that won't help our cause. There's no medical help here."

Robin felt a knot twisting in her stomach. She had wanted the truth and she got it. Not that it made hearing it any easier. She could almost understand why they were endlessly trying to protect her from it. They loved her too much to make her feel the way she felt right now.

The truth hurts.

"What happened, Dad?"

"I got shot in the shoulder when we were escaping the police."

That explained the bloody mess on his shirt that Robin couldn't peel her eyes away from. She should really have taken a look at it, to see if it was infected.

'And then what?' she asked herself. 'What am I, the unequipped med-student, going to do exactly?'

"Has someone had a look at it?" was what she asked instead.

"Before heading for the border, we went back to Medellin. I knew some people there that I could trust, and they brought in a doctor who fixed it up."

'He did a lousy job,' Robin thought, looking at it now. 'Either that or you did a lousy job taking care of it.'

"And Mom?"

"Your mother was hurt in a brawl at the prison."

Robin winced as her father continued.

"We both fell down a ravine yesterday. That explains the scratches and bruises we're covered with. The fall left Anna unconscious for a while. She's weak and exhausted. We both are and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about your mom."

"What can we do?" Robin managed.

"Get out of Panama fast."

Something else suddenly occurred to her, a question she needed answered now.

"There's something I don't understand…you said you didn't remember us until…yesterday? If that's the case, then why did you help Mom escape?"

"I didn't remember your mother when I first met her. I didn't want to believe anything she said, but at the same time I _knew_ that I knew her. It was instinct more than anything else. I didn't plan on springing her out of prison, but then she told me I had a daughter. That she'd take me to her if I helped her out. At that point, I _wanted_ to believe her, Robin. Badly enough that I was willing to risk everything."

Robin's eyes widened. "So she blackmailed you into helping her escape?"

Her father smiled, "She knew me well enough to know exactly what it would take to get me to help her."

"You, uh…" The words got caught in her throat. "You must hated her then, for what she was making you do." The sudden knowledge of what her mother was capable of chilled her, even in the humid heat of the room. It was a glimpse of another side of her mother. Maybe if she opened her eyes sooner, she might have seen it before. Then maybe she wouldn't have been as shocked by her mother's decision to smuggle a priceless, stolen mask to a Colombian drug lord.

"No, luv. I didn't hate her." Her father's smile deepened, "Granted, I'd be lying if I said we got along at first. I was angry and confused, with myself _and_ with your mother. I hated the hold she had on me and I hated that she knew so much about me, when I knew next to nothing about her. But, after that first day, when I saw her in the prison in Medellin, something happened...I felt alive again, for the first time in a long time."

"Essentially she used me as your pawn," Robin pressed. "You couldn't help but help her, knowing she was the mother of your child."

"No, Robin," her father corrected her. "She didn't tell me you were her daughter. She didn't want me to know. I think she didn't want me to help her out of sympathy."

Robin felt a guilty warmth flood her cheeks. Just when she thought, she'd come closer to understanding the enigma that was her mother, everything changed again and suddenly her father's words ran through her mind like an echo.

_At that point I wanted to believe her, Robin. Badly enough that I was willing to risk everything_.

Tears stung her eyes, "You're saying all this…it was to find me?"

"Hey…" Robert moved towards her and tugged a strand of hair behind her ears. "Before you take personal responsibility for my bullet wound, ask yourself what you'd have done in my shoes. What would you have done if you had spent over ten years of your life trying to piece together who you are, then, out of nowhere, someone teases you with the notion that you have a child. Imagine that all of a sudden you know that your flesh and blood is out there and that you really do have a connection to this world. Once I knew that, you have no idea how badly I wanted and_ needed_ to see you, Robin."

"Even without knowing who I was…" Robin marvelled.

"Had I known you, the decision to help your mother would have been even easier. I wouldn't have hesitated for a second."

"You're in a lot of trouble with the law."

"It doesn't matter, Robin," he said firmly. "I'd do it again, if I knew then that right now I'd be here, in this house, with my memory back and my daughter standing across from me."

Robin didn't know what to say to that. He was answering her questions one by one, without her having to do so much as ask them. Not that she really had a right to ask them now when there were half a dozen more pressing things to do.

Like getting her parents out of the country. Like getting them medical help.

"I'm going to get Mac," she told him and when she caught the trepidation in his eyes, she added more softly. "Are you ready to see him? And Valencia."

"Valencia Munoz?" he looked at her in shock. "She's here too?"

"Yeah…she put two and two together about who we were and Mac convinced her to help us out."

"I don't know what to say…"

Robin laughed, "I think you taught her well."

"I'm gonna yell at her for risking her job like this." Robert chuckled, "Yeah…of course I'm ready to see them."

Robin smiled. That was her father. He'd face every challenge he was up against head on.

God, she had missed him so much. She missed that strength and conviction.

"I have some medical supplies," she told him. "It's not much, but we have clean bandages, aspirin…essentials. I think it'll help, maybe make you more comfortable."

Robert nodded, "Good. Bring them."

Robin didn't want to leave for fear that she'd never see him again. "Thanks by the way," she added, giving herself the excuse to stay a moment longer.

"For what?"

"For looking after Mom."

Her father's eyes squinted, "I did a lousy job at first. Then it was the other way around. She looked after me. I'm hoping she'll give me a chance to make it up to her."

Robin smiled as she turned to leave.

She didn't doubt that her mother would give him all the time in the world. And in turn her father had never let her doubt just how fiercely he loved her mother. Whether or not they were together had always been irrelevant. She'd forgotten that too.

Robin walked down the dirt road to where Mac and Valencia were staying, blinded by the rising sun.

Even so, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the same chopper that had brought them here yesterday landing in the distance.


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter XXVII**

_Payita, Panama_

Robert sat down next to her, leaning against the wall.

"Are you okay?" Anna asked him softly, staring up at him, half asleep.

"She's so beautiful."

Anna smiled a lazy smile, "Isn't she?"

"She's an adult now, Anna and I remember a child. She went from a child to an adult and I missed it all."

"I know…" Anna reached out to squeeze his hand. "We both did."

"How…?" he asked her angrily. "How do you cope with that kind of regret?"

"The way I see it…" she started, pausing for thought. "Is that I got a second chance with Robin. I can't justify wasting a single moment of that precious time on regrets."

Robert sank bank wearily against the wall. In spite of the sleep he got he was still sore and exhausted. It took effort just to sit upright. Were it not for the throbbing in his shoulder he might have fallen asleep on the spot.

Anna was right.

But he couldn't bring himself to see it like that. Not yet.

All he saw was years of lost time. Years that he could've spent watching his daughter grow into the beautiful young woman she was today. Years wasted chasing drug lords in Colombia. Years not knowing who he was or where he belonged.

"If it's any consolation, I was a mess after I first saw her again. You're handling it a lot better than I did."

Robert closed his eyes and saw Robin standing in front of him. Not, Robin the child, but Robin the woman. A myriad of emotions churned in his chest, and he forced himself to ignore them.

It wasn't that he was handling things well. It was just that he couldn't afford be a mess. Not now.

Regret. Anger. Exhilaration. Bitterness. Frustration.

He would deal with all those later.

He felt Anna's hand reach up for his, and he grasped it, moving it to his lips.

He wondered if Anna had any idea how grateful he was to remember. To remember how much he loved her. He kissed her hand, knowing it was something he'd done before. Her skin felt familiar against his lips now. "Why don't you get some more sleep? It's still so early…"

Anna's looked at him in disbelief. "You want me to sleep through your reunion with your brother?"

"I suppose when you put it that way…"

"I can't get over the shock of seeing Robin here," she said. "Part of me is waiting for you to wake me up."

Robert knew exactly what she meant. He released her hand and got up. "How are you feeling?"

Anna frowned. "Sore. You?"

"Same." He could emphasize on that count too. "Robin brought some medical supplies. She went to get them."

"Good." Anna nodded. "You need to change the dressing on your shoulder. It looks ghastly."

"You need a doctor."

"Stop worrying." Anna stifled a yawn. "I'll be fine."

"You're not," he corrected her. She was too weak to stand last time he checked.

"I will be."

On that account she was right. He'd do whatever it took to make sure.

It was suddenly very quiet in the house. The children had left to go outside. Apparently, their conversation, in a language they couldn't understand, wasn't interesting enough to hold their attention.

"I'm going to see if I can find some food and water."

Robert barely left the room and stepped outside into the morning heat when he saw something that made his heart skip a beat.

He hurried back inside.

Anna sat upright with a jump. "Robert, what is it?"

"Rigato." The blood had drained from his face. "Luis Rigato is here."

_Elsewhere in Payita_

Robin half-walked, half-ran back to the house where Mac and Val were staying. A permanent grin was etched on her face.

She was certain she wouldn't have to say anything to her uncle when she saw him because it was written all over her face that she'd found her parents.

She spotted Mac outside the house, his hand against his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun.

"Robin, where the hell have you been?"

Valencia too was standing outside, looking considerably less agitated than her uncle.

"I saw…" Robin started but Mac didn't let her finish.

"Didn't I tell you not to take off on your own?" Mac cut her off.

Robin arched her brows. "I couldn't sleep. I needed some fresh air. I didn't think…you'd even notice!"

She caught a snicker coming from Valencia. "Right."

"Did I not tell you not to leave the house on your own? Do you have any idea what sort of people stop by this town?" Mac asked, incredulously.

"It's not like I check in with you when I leave my apartment in Paris!" Robin shot back. "Shoot me if I forgot the house rules here."

"Hey…" Valencia raised her arm and shot a look that could kill in Mac's direction. "Robin is okay. That is all that is important. And you…" She refocused her glare in Robin's direction. "Next time you go away on your own, write a note to us, so your uncle doesn't have to worry. You owe him that much, even if he is being silly."

" 'Silly?' " Mac shook his head in disbelief.

Robin bit her tongue. The last thing she had expected was a lecture.

"You almost said something," Valencia pointed out. "What was it, Robin?"

"Oh yeah…" she stopped, just short of rolling her eyes. "I almost forgot… I found Mom and Dad."

"What?"

A collective gasp came from Mac and Valencia.

"Sweetheart, what did you say?" Mac stared at her.

"You're not going to believe it but…" Robin's grin made its way back. "I found them! They made it to Payita. Well, first I found Dad…he was walking down this road and I almost didn't recognize him, but of course then I did, and he…he recognized me and then…" Before she realized it she felt the warmth of tears flood her eyes again. "He's here, Mac. Dad is_ here_."

"You really found them?" Her uncle laughed, pulling her into a hug, "Oh Robin…"

Through her tears, Robin saw Valencia smile.

"Where are they?" Valencia asked her softly.

"Are they okay?" Mac added, before Robin had a chance to answer.

She pulled out of her uncle's embrace, wiping her eyes. "Not really. They're a mess." Her thoughts drifted back to the supplies they brought along. "I told them I'd get whatever medical supplies we had and bring it to them."

Mac nodded. "I'll grab the packs if you show us where they are." He grinned, and when he did Robin caught a hint of nervous apprehension on his face as well. She wasn't the only one who hadn't seen her father in over a decade. Mac too hadn't seen his brother in over ten years. It had to be as jarring for him as it had been for her only minutes ago.

"Mac…" Robin started; wanting to protect him from the shock she felt when she first saw her father. "Dad remembers us now. He'll know you."

"It wouldn't have mattered if he didn't, sweetheart." He grinned. "Robbie's back, that's all that matters."

Valencia had already grabbed the packs from the other room and held them out to Robin and Mac, "What are you waiting for? Vamonos!"

_Payita, Panama_

"Luis Rigato?" Anna looked at Robert with doubt. "The man who followed us out of the prison van?"

"The one and only. Bastard."

"Are you sure?"

Robert nodded, trying frantically to think. Trying to piece together what his presence implied. He paced circles on the dirt floor. "He's limping…"

"You're welcome," Anna mumbled.

Robert smirked. "Trust me, sweetheart, if we had a damn gun right now, I'd gladly let you finish the job."

"He wouldn't be here alone would he?"

"No." Robert shook his head. "Not even Rigato's that stupid. If he's here he'll be here with reinforcements."

Anna's face paled. "We have to warn Robin, Mac and Valencia."

"I know," Robert agreed. "And we need to leave this house to make sure that this family isn't implicated in any way for harbouring a fugitive…"

"Stop it…" A hint of colour returned to her cheeks as they turned an angry red. "You sound like you're planning on getting caught."

"No, just… trying to think."

"Go warn Mac and Robin!"

Robert nodded and he knelt down next to her. "I will. But you're coming with me."

"You're faster if you…" she started to protest, but his arm was underneath hers before she could say anything else.

"Not leaving you here." His eyes met hers, as he hoisted her up alongside him, catching his breath. "Can you walk?"

"Of course." There was enough indignation in her voice to suggest it was a dumb question.

Anger crept up his throat as he considered what Rigato's presence meant. It meant their brief respite was over. That they were back on the run even though neither of them was up to the task. That Robin was in danger too now, caught in the middle of a mess that she should have stayed far away from. It meant that, after more than a decade, he wouldn't get one peaceful moment with his brother, before dragging him into more danger.

They had come so far…and now this. It was so damn unfair.

"Robert…?" Anna's hand had grasped his arm. He couldn't tell whether it was for balance or to tell him something."

He held on to her in case it was the former.

"What is it?"

"Robin said Valencia was here too. Is there…" Anna asked, hesitating. "Is there a chance she's playing them? That she used Mac to lead the police here?"

Naturally Anna would ask the one question that had crept into the back of his mind the moment he spotted Rigato here.

"It's possible," he admitted. Why _wouldn't _Valencia have come to her senses by now? God knows he'd spent enough years trying to convince her that nothing and no one was worth tarnishing her badge for. That the culture of corruption in Colombia could only end one officer at a time. It was what he'd been preaching and living and breathing for more than a decade. The irony that it was these very principles that might lead to his demise now, didn't escape him. "Yeah, it's possible."

Judging from the look on her face, Anna didn't quite buy it, even if she was the one who brought up the possibility. "But if she'd wanted us caught, she had every chance to do it in the Barrio, when she came to see us."

"I know," Robert agreed. "It doesn't make sense." He didn't want it to make sense because Valencia Munoz was the only officer on the entire Medellin force that he'd allowed to get close enough to call a friend. The notion that she could be the one to betray him was a bitter pill to swallow.

"But if not Valencia then how could Rigato have found us?"

It was a good question. Valencia was the only one who vaguely knew where they were headed, and even so it was a lucky guess on her part that she'd arrived in Payita precisely when they had. If Rigato had made those connections it would have gone beyond brilliant police work; he would have to be psychic.

"If Valencia's playing on Rigato's side, we have to get Mac and Robin away from her…"

Robert nodded. As if things weren't complicated enough.

"Let's go."

_Payita, Panama_

Luis Rigato nearly did a double take when he saw them.

Both of them were sluggish in the humidity, breathing heavily with the simple effort of walking.

He had hoped to find them here. Hoped to spot them and take them down.

But that was all it was. Wishful thinking.

But here they were. Right in front of him. It was neither hope nor dream anymore. It was reality.

It was going to happen.

Adrenaline shot through him, and a smile spread across his face. Luis Rigato knew he would be able to walk easily now. He barely felt the bullet wound in his thigh.

Roberto Sandoval and the female fugitive were right in front of his eyes. Rigato observed Sandoval's hand on the woman's back, helping her along. Although he too walked with difficulty, she was obviously the one slowing him down. Yet, from a distance, it didn't seem to matter to Sandoval. He was patient. His welfare seemed to take a back seat to hers.

It was obvious she meant something to him.

'So much for what those bleeding heart journalists are saying,' Rigato thought, with disgust. There had been talk in the news that this woman, this Filomena Soltini, had taken their Assistant Commissioner hostage. That she had somehow forced him to help her by threatening the lives of others. That he was a victim in this whole affair.

'People are so damn naïve,' Rigato thought, frowning. They believed what they wanted to believe. And god knows they didn't want to believe that their golden-boy was a crook. It must hurt to realize that their beloved, blue-eyed Commissioner was just as dirty as the men he'd supposedly fought against. Idealists usually didn't last long in Colombia. It was a wonder Sandoval stayed as squeaky clean for as long as he did. 'Better stick to telenovelas for your heroes, folks,' he snickered, his eyes following Sandoval and the woman.

Sandoval's affection for the woman could be useful, Rigato realized.

She could be his Achilles Heel.

_Nearby_

It bothered Robert that they had no idea where Rigato was right now. He had slipped out of sight almost right after Robert had spotted him. He could be watching them for all they knew. In fact, if he didn't recognize it as paranoia, he would have insisted to Anna that they were being watched.

He could almost feel a set of eyes boring into his back.

'Stop it,' Robert muttered, chastising himself while at the same time turning around for any sight of Rigato. The break in pace gave Anna a moment to catch her breath.

All around him, the village was surprisingly quiet now, in the morning heat. The noises that filled the humid air came mostly from animals. Pigs and chickens feeding. Dogs fighting or sleeping on the dirt ground. He spotted a lone villager and a handful of near-naked kids playing tag in the distance.

In contrast to the unexpected silence, the voice that suddenly snuck up behind made him want to jump out of his skin.

"Move away from the road!"

Robert swirled around to see Luis Rigato waving a gun at both of them.

_Where the hell had he come from?_

"I said move away! Walk slowly towards the forest!"

He yelled the orders in Spanish, and Robert saw that Anna made no move to obey them. Instead, she had stopped dead in her tracks.

"Anna, walk towards the forest," Robert told her, barely getting the words out. He realized a split second later that he had made the mistake of calling her by her real name. It was a careless mistake, considering that Rigato was still on the hunt for Roberto Sandoval and Filomena Soltini.

Unless Valencia had informed him otherwise.

"Why?" Anna shot back. She'd regained her composure much faster than he did. "So he can shoot us without any witnesses in sight?"

Robert moved towards her, ready to pull her along if need be, but Rigato yelled at him to stay at arm's length from her. "Just do it, for god's sake, luv."

Anna hesitated, but she must have caught the insistence in his eyes and started walking.

The three of them walked away from the village, away from any signs of human life, towards the rainforest with Rigato's gun in their back. It wasn't until they entered the fringes of the forest, surrounded by trees, that Rigato ordered them to stop.

"This is suicide," Anna mumbled to Robert, deciding that Rigato didn't understand any more English than he spoke. "We're away from the village, which means he can do whatever wants because he's waving a gun in our face. If we don't take him down right now, we might not get another chance. Remember, he can only shoot one of us at a time..."

'And I'm not going to risk that one person being you…' Robert thought, unwilling to entertain the notion. He had every confidence that Rigato wouldn't risk his glory by not bringing back the Assistant Commissioner alive. Knowing that, Robert was certain Rigato wouldn't kill him. He might enjoy roughing him up a bit, but he wouldn't kill him. Anna was a different matter. The Colombian press wouldn't care about putting Anna on trial. And therefore neither would Rigato. Rigato would make no great effort to stop a stray bullet from flying in her direction.

"_Callate!"_ Rigato yelled at Anna.

"She doesn't understand you!" Robert shot back.

"Get down on the ground," Rigato hissed, in Spanish, pointing the gun at Robert's temple now. "Both of you! Down on the ground!"

Again, Anna didn't obey him.

"Anna, get down!" Robert yelled.

He would've pushed her down himself had she not been standing too far out of reach.

It was all over, Robert realized, with monumental regret. Everything.

Everything they had managed to survive these last two days was for nothing only because Rigato was armed and he'd somehow caught them by surprise.

Had he been alone Robert would have fought him. He'd have jumped Rigato and risked a fatal bullet, because there was no way he'd come this far and go down without a fight now.

Except he wasn't alone.

Any resistance on his part would give Rigato the excuse he was looking for to take it out on Anna. And that knowledge made Robert surprisingly compliant.

He fell to his knees and saw Rigato whip out a pair of handcuffs to put on Anna, while trying to keep his gun pointed at Robert.

Anna must have noticed that Rigato struggled to balance the two tasks, so she used his momentary distraction to kick him in the shins.

Rigato nearly fell over, regaining his balance at the last second.

"Run, Robert! Run!" she yelled, trying to get back up.

Running was the last thing he could have done. The thought of what could happen next paralysed him.

Rigato saw what Anna was doing, and, being considerably faster, he slammed his gun against her face to knock her back down.

The sound of the metal hitting the side of her head, unfroze Robert's limbs, making him jump up in anger, "I'm going to kill...!"

"Don't even think about it," Rigato spat back, aiming his gun directly at Robert. "One more step and I will kill _you_. First you…" He turned to Anna with disgust, "…and then her."

Robert's heart pounded. He no longer doubted that Rigato would do it.

A trickle of blood poured down the side of Anna's face, and this time she didn't resist when Rigato slapped the handcuffs on her.

Robert winced. He wanted to go to her, but Rigato's gun was still pointed at his forehead.

"What the hell are you waiting for?" Luis yelled. "Get back down on the ground. Lie face down with your arms and legs spread apart! Now!"

Once Rigato handcuffed him, it would truly be over.

_Why the hell was Rigato alone? Where was his back-up?_

Robert was still standing. Hesitating.

Anna lifted her head off the ground to glare at Robert, "I don't know what he's telling you but don't do it! Certainly not on my account!"

Annoyed by her outburst, Rigato dug the heel of his boot into her side, while his gun remained pointed at Robert.

Anna groaned and Robert dropped to his knees.

"Damn it, Anna," he cursed under his breath. "Stop provoking him!"

"You tell her..." Rigato hissed, while pulling up Robert's arms to cuff him. "That if she says one more word, I will kill her."

"And you tell yourself..." Robert clenched his teeth, in an effort to turn around and meet Rigato's glare. "That if you kill her you lose the one and only hold you have on me. That if you hurt her again, these handcuffs won't stop me from killing you. If I have to rip out your eyes with my teeth, then that's what I'll do!"

Luis Rigato snickered. "Is that a challenge?" He grabbed Anna and yanked her back up so that she was on her knees. "It sounds like a challenge to me." He turned the gun downwards, placing it squarely against her temple.

Robert's knees weakened.

_What have I done?_

"Who is this woman?" Rigato demanded. "Why does she mean so much to you?" There was a mix of glee and genuine surprise in Rigato's expression. "I never, not in my wildest dreams, imagined that I could one day have so much power over you." He grinned now, drops of sweat gleaming on his forehead from the heat and the exertion of holding on to Anna with his one free hand. "It's a great feeling. To hold all the cards. You make me want to kill her just to see your reaction."

Robert stared at him in icy shock. How was it possible that this man had such loathing for him? How could he not have noticed it and removed him from the force? He'd always known Rigato was a loose cannon, but he had never suspected this kind of hatred.

There were no witnesses if Rigato were to shoot and kill Anna here. It would be Robert's word against Rigato's.

Robert locked eyes with Anna's, wishing he could do something to reassure her.

_It's gonna be okay. I'll find a way out of this. Trust me._

"Let her go," Robert managed, his voice cracking. "Look… whatever it is you want from me, I'll do it. Just let her go."

Rigato eyed him in astonishment. "How far we have come, Commissioner Sandoval. You begging me?"

"Let her go!"

The order came in English.

But not from Robert.

In fact, the voice came out of nowhere, from behind the trees. It was one Robert hadn't heard in over a decade. But he knew it all the same.

Robert spun around in disbelief and he saw that while Rigato's gun was aimed at Anna, Mac Scorpio's was aimed squarely at Luis Rigato.

And Robert stood in the middle.


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter XXVIII**

Payita, Panama

Robin Scorpio was standing back just far enough to see the entire scene unfold in front of her eyes.

It was as though she had stepped into a movie where all the characters had frozen, in mid-action.

Except it wasn't a movie theatre, but the edge of a jungle, full of thick, lush, green vegetation and trees that blocked part of her view.

Most jarring of all was the knowledge that no matter how unreal it felt, what was unravelling in front of her wasn't on screen. It was real.

A man stood in the middle. A balding, heavy-set man. He was sweating and his forehead glistened in the sunlight that cut through the forest like blades of gold. The man was holding on to her mother with one arm, while pressing a gun against her temple with the other. She was handcuffed and so still that Robin wondered whether she was holding her breath.

The bald man yelled something at her father in Spanish, something that had made him too stand deathly still, as if any movement on his part might trigger a fatal reaction.

Then there was her uncle, who had made a last minute entrance into the scene. An entrance that was so striking he now commanded everyone's attention.

"I said let her go!"

Her uncle's voice was sharp but calm, a stark contrast to the nervous terror that crawled up Robin's spine. Her eyes darted from one person to another; afraid they might miss something crucial.

"_Quien eres_?" the man in the centre demanded, making no move to obey Mac's order.

Then Robin heard both Valencia and her father shouting something in Spanish simultaneously.

Angry, frightened voices rang though the air. English and Spanish. Male and female. Familiar and foreign.

Then suddenly, all the voices stopped.

Silence.

The air was so still and heavy that Robin could hear the pounding of her heart.

Then the gunfire started.

_"No!"_

Robin didn't realize that she was the one who was yelling, or that she had pressed her eyes shut.

Bullets flew through the air and made popping and whizzing noises as they flew by and made contact with trees and leaves. Robin stood immobile as she re-opened her eyes and watched the people in front of her fall to the ground.

First her father, then her mother, then the stranger, then Mac…

_"Robin! Get down!"_

Mac falling was the last thing she saw before someone pushed her to the ground too, shoving her face into the soft, moist ground. She tasted earth and dirt, as her mouth pressed onto the ground and her hair meshed with something large, green and leafy. Her vision was completely blocked now and she couldn't see anything.

In a reflex action, she tried to push off whoever covered her, but that person was stronger.

"Stay down, Robin!" a voice yelled into her ears.

It was Valencia, Robin realized. Valencia was lying on top of her, covering her with her body.

And then, just as suddenly as the chaos had erupted, it was over again.

Silence again.

There were no more bullets. No more voices. The only sounds she could hear were leaves rustling in the forest and tropical birds squawking in the distance.

Valencia pushed herself off Robin while telling her to stay down, whispering the words this time.

"Mom…" Robin's voice was as shaky as her limbs. Oblivious to Valencia's order, she pushed herself off the ground, but she stumbled twice before standing upright.

She saw Valencia had left her and was now hovering over Mac.

Her father too was moving, trying to stand up. He was as wobbly as she was.

The man, the stranger, however, was still on the ground. Blood was pouring out of his chest and dripping down along his arm in a neat red line before pooling on the ground next to him.

"Mom…" Robin ran over to her mother, ignoring the man, even though muffled, gargled sounds now came from his lips, pleading for some sort of attention.

Blood ran down the side of her mother's face, and Robin pressed her hand against it. "Mom…did you…did you get…shot?"

Her mother shook her head, her eyes fixed on the man who was bleeding in front of her. "No… Robin…the gun… get Rigato's gun!"

But her father had already beaten her to it. He had crawled over to where the man was lying and kicked the gun away from him.

Robin didn't think there was much of a threat of the man doing anything, least of all picking up his gun and firing another round, but obviously her parents thought otherwise.

"Robin…get over here!" Valencia yelled. "Mac is hurt!"

Robin stared at her parents, still in shock. Both of them looked awful, but at first glance it looked like they made it through the gunfire without a bullet wound at least.

"Go help him," her father ordered. "I'll take care of your mother."

"But…you're handcuffed…" Robin mouthed. The metallic smell of blood now mingled in her nostrils along with the sweet, moist smell of the rainforest. She didn't know whom to turn to or who to help…the stranger who was dying in front her, her parents, her uncle?

"I'll get the keys from Rigato. Go help Val…" her father insisted.

Robin's legs were still shaking, but she managed to get over to where Mac and Valencia were, without stumbling over the vegetation under her feet.

"I'm fine!" she heard her uncle protest to Valencia. "The bullet barely nicked me!"

He was trying to sit up and when he did Robin noticed a steady flow of blood from his side.

"You let Robin make that diagnosis!" Valencia shot back.

"Robin's a med student not a doctor!"

Robin stared at them in disbelief, "What are you doing? There's a man dying! Mom's hurt and Dad's hurt and you're arguing?"

"Robin…the pack…get the backpack with the medical supplies," Valencia instructed her, pointing to where it was lying on the ground.

They'd brought along the medical supplies on the way to see her parents. Robin had forgotten about them.

"She needs to check on Rigato not me…" Robin heard Mac say as she went to grab the pack. "If Rigato dies, we've got a dead body on our hands."

"Rigato would have killed Anna if you had not shot him," Valencia pointed out. "Maybe not just Anna, maybe us too." She stared at him icily, crossing herself. "_Merece todo_."

Robin went to get the pack and yanked out the supplies inside. Holding them in her hands made her realize they were still shaking. 'Get a grip. You're going to be a doctor. And this is it. This is what being a doctor is. If anyone has to stay calm, it's me.'

The realization steadied her hands. She couldn't think of them as the people she loved most in the world. But as injured bodies who needed help. _Her_ help.

From the corner of her eye she spotted her father kneeling over the injured man. She saw him say something to her mother and shake his head. Both of them were free of their handcuffs now.

Robin ran back to Mac, kneeling down next to him as she pulled up his shirt, inspecting the wound. Although the flow of blood was generous, Robin breathed a sigh of relief when she saw no obvious bullet wound, aside from the streak that ran across his side. "I think you're right, Mac," she told him. "It grazed you. I can clean it and then I'll bandage you up."

"I think you should take a look at Rigato before you do that…"

"Too late," a voice announced from behind her. Her father had joined them. "He's dead. Two bullets hit him." He stared at Mac in disbelief. "You're still a damn good shot."

Mac returned his stare, soaking in the sight of his brother. "After all these years you still need me to bail you out, Robbie. It's a sad and sorry thing."

Her father's eyes lit up into a smile, "You're jealous because of all the attention I got today, so you had to go and get yourself shot, didn't you?"

Mac held out his arms, grinning. "Jesus Robbie, do you have idea how good it is to see you again?"

Robin watched as her father kneeled down to return Mac's embrace. Watched as Mac's calm and bravado finally evaporated and his eyes welled up. "You have no damn idea…"

It wasn't the reunion she expected, but that didn't stop the lump from forming in her throat.

Her father hugged Mac with a strength that surprised Robin and she wondered how many more shocks he'd be able to handle in one day.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned around to see her mother standing behind her.

"I didn't think I'd ever see that…"

Robin felt the warmth of a tear fall down her face and wiped away hastily. It seemed like that was all she'd been doing the last few days. Crying.

She turned to her mother. "You've lost blood, Mom. Sit down."

"Sweetheart, you have to help Mac and we have to get out of here."

She had a point. They had to get out of the jungle and into a house. Preferably one with a clean bed and decent lighting, so she could get her mother and Mac to lie down and have a good look at their injuries.

"Maybe Valencia can get us some help from the village…maybe find us a house where I actually take care of you properly."

"No…" Anna shook her head. "That's not what I meant. I'm not sure we can risk heading back into the village." She turned to Robert, "Rigato can't possibly be here alone, can he? There must be someone else here with him."

"You're right," Valencia agreed. "He can't be here alone."

"You should head back into the village," Robert added. "Not to get us help but to find out whether there are other officers here and how many."

"What?" Robin stared at them, not believing what she was hearing. "This is crazy. You can't stay here…not in your condition!"

"You said you have medical supplies, luv, don't you?" Robert asked her. He was entirely too calm and collected given everything that had just happened. It wasn't natural. At least it wasn't in her world.

"I have a fancy first aid kit! That's what I have! I'm not some…field surgeon, Dad!" she protested. "I'm not even a doctor!"

"Not so loud…" her mother cut in.

Her father's hand was on her arm. "I know your nerves are shot, Robin. All of ours are. We're not expecting miracles. Let's just see what we can do with what we have and we'll go from there."

'Go where exactly?' she wanted to ask.

It was as though she was still inside a movie theatre. She'd made it through the heart-stopping climax near the end and now she was waiting for the moment when the credits would roll.

Robin saw her father speaking to Valencia in Spanish, watched her nodding in agreement to what he said. The sound of the foreign language coming from her father's lips only added to the absurdity of it all.

"Where is she going?" Robin asked when she saw Valencia leave them to walk back to the village. But not before kneeling down to Mac, to check on him once more.

"She's going to the village to check whether there are other cops around," Robert explained.

He made it sound like that was the only obvious thing she could possibly be doing. Even though they had three injured people and a dead man on their hands.

Robin observed her father pulling out a bunch of bandages and antiseptic ointments from the kit.

"Dad, what are you doing?"

"I'm going to help Mac. I want you to look after your mother."

"Can you…?"

"Patch up a basic wound? Of course."

'I should be tending to him,' Robin thought. 'I want to. It's Mac.'

Seeing her father kneel down next to Mac, Robin understood that it wasn't about patching him up. It was about her father desperately needing a moment alone with his brother.

Robin grabbed her pack and turned to her mother only to see that her bloodstained face had taken on a greyish tint.

"Mom?"

"He came out of nowhere, Robin." Anna mumbled. Her eyes were still fixed on Rigato's dead body. "He came so close…to killing us both. When he held the gun against my head I thought…then he shot…he shot Mac…"

Now that the adrenaline rush was gone, the shock of what had happened had caught up with her mother. Robin wasn't sure whether she was relieved to find out she was as human as herself, or whether she was afraid for what her reaction meant.

"Mom…I want you to lie down for a sec."

"I'm fine…I just…" She pressed a flat hand against her stomach. "Don't feel so good."

"Right." Anger flared into Robin's cheeks, subsiding her own panic. "Mom, stop staring at this guy and lie down!"

The ground was moist and Robin could see bugs crawling near her feet.

"I need to fix the cut on your temple and I want to do it when you're lying down, okay? Help me out here."

Anna shook her head, biting her lip as if to stave off her nausea. "No…not here. Please."

Robin gave her a not so gentle push onto the ground, and grabbed one of her mother's hands, clasping it in both of hers. "I know it's not the Ritz, but your hands are freezing cold and it's got to be almost a hundred degrees here. If you go into shock on me because you're too damn stubborn to listen…"

"Robin…" She was either too on edge or too uncomfortable, or maybe both, to stay down and tried to push herself back off the ground, needing to see what Robert was doing.

Robin glared at her and pushed her back down. "Don't think about Mac or Dad or anyone except yourself right now." So this is what being a doctor was, she realized. You ignored everything around you, including whatever panic and helplessness you felt and focused only on the person right in front of you. "I want you to lie on your back, raise your legs up onto that branch, take deep breaths and focus on me, okay? Just me."

Her mother finally conceded and she concentrated on Robin. "I'm sorry…"

"Uh huh," Robin fought back a smirk. "I want you to stick around for that long explanation you owe me once we're back in Paris." She grabbed her medical supplies, grimacing when she gently cleaned the side of her mother's face. "This is going to sting. Keep breathing and focusing on me. And after, when you stop looking like you're going to pass out, I want you to drink some water and maybe take a couple of these aspirins. Okay?"

Her mother managed a defeated smile, a hint of colour returning to her face. "Alright, doc."

A few feet away from them, Robert was clumsily unwrapping gauze bandage.

"Your hands are shaking," Mac told him through clenched teeth.

"Hold tight." Robert poured some bottled water onto the wound. "I wasn't expecting to fix up a bullet wound two minutes after meeting you. If you want steady hands you'd better get Robin over here."

"Nicked," Mac corrected him. "I got nicked. Not shot. Not like you apparently."

When he was finished Robert sank down onto the ground. Exhausted. Now that the adrenaline was leaving him, his body was ready to shut down. "This should do it."

"Thanks."

Robert stared at Mac. The whole morning had been overwhelming. First Robin. Then the stand-off. Rigato's death. Now Mac. His little brother was here sitting next to him, looking even better now than he did over a decade ago. Time had been kind to Mac. "I should be thanking you."

Mac waved away the notion with a roll of his eyes.

"You saved our lives today," Robert insisted. He meant it, ignoring the fatigue that was seeping into his bones now. "All these years, that I was gone, it was you who raised my daughter wasn't it?" Robert knew the answer with one glance into his brother eyes. "How do I begin to thank you for that?"

"Hey." Mac smirked, "Robin might have given me a few grey hairs. She's your kid after all. But…" He was serious too now. "Seeing her turn into an amazing young woman,_ that's_ been an honour, Robbie…a privilege."

Robert watched his daughter. She was fussing over Anna now, and regret engulfed him all over again. Regret for all the endless moments he'd missed and would never get back.

"Do you…?" he asked, swallowing, his throat constricting as he forced himself to shelve the thought, along with the bitterness. _Why the hell couldn't he have remembered? All these years. Why?_ "Do you have children of your own?" he asked his brother.

"Biological, no. But…yes, I do."

"Yes? But no?" Robert didn't understand.

"It's a long story," Mac explained. "I want to save it for when you take me out for a fancy steak dinner."

There was more he wanted to ask. Countless questions. Was he still with Dominique? Had they married? Did he live in Port Charles? Had he remained close to Anna?

Instead of voicing a single one, Robert focused on Mac's wound, relieved to see that the bandages weren't soaking up as much blood as he feared they might. Grilling Mac was neither fair nor timely. He probably wasn't the only one with questions.

"I bet you have a question or two," Robert acknowledged.

"Just one big one," Mac answered. "Why? Why did you let us think you were dead?"

"I didn't," Robert replied, quickly. "Whatever happens after this," he told him. "I want you to know that I never meant to leave you or Anna or Robin. I would never have."

"Then what…?"

"Amnesia," Robert explained. "After the tanker explosion, a fishing trawler caught me in the ocean, half-dead, hanging on to a rubber tube. They brought me to Cartagena and I had no idea who the hell I was. Until…" His eyes went over to Robin and Anna, who were talking to each other.

"Until you saw Anna again…" Mac finished for him. He shook his head in disbelief at the odds. "And what were the chances of that?"

Mac's voice faded into the background. Robert didn't want to think of the odds. Anna_ did_ end up here. That was all that mattered. She'd given him his past back. The least he could do in return was get her and Robin out of this mess.

"I'm dying to know what you did for ten years but…"

"Now's not the best time, is it?" Robert finished for him. He couldn't help staring at Rigato. They now had a dead body on their hands. A dead officer. And irony of ironies, that wasn't their biggest problem.

Robert saw Valencia running towards them. Out of breath.

"What is it?" Mac asked.

She wiped sweat from her forehead with one hand, her mouth set in an anxious frown. "Bad news," she told them. "We were right. Rigato didn't come alone. There are two officers in town looking for him… and for you."


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter XXIX **

_Payita, Panama_

"There are two officers in town looking for him and for you."

Valencia's words echoed in his ears as though she'd said them twice.

Robert cursed under his breath. Could anything else possibly go wrong?

Robert stared at Mac, who looked as solemn as he did, his forehead creased in panicked thought.

"What are we going to do?" Valencia asked, daring to voice their collective question aloud.

"We could really use someone to swoop in here in a private jet and whisk us out of Payita…" Robert mumbled.

Robin made her way over to her uncle, brushing away the leaves that lapped against her legs before kneeling down to inspect the bandages Robert had wrapped around Mac's wound. "Did you say a private jet?"

"Wishful thinking," Robert sighed. While Robin looked after Mac, he stumbled over to where Anna was sitting, frowning at the sight of the freshly bloodied bandages on her face.

"I think you, Anna and Robin should try to get that helicopter to come back and bring you to Yaviza while I stay here and stall the officers." Mac suggested to Robert.

Anna looked at him incredulously, "We're not leaving you here!"

"I don't know about Mac but you _are_ leaving me," Valencia informed her. "Because I cannot leave with you." For the first time since the stand off, Robert noticed that she was as tense as the rest of them. Not that she didn't have ample reason. Robert knew that, along with Mac and Robin, he and Anna would had no choice but to keep running from the law. However that wasn't an option for Valencia.

"I can't run from the Medellin police. I cannot become a fugitive when my son and my mother are still in Medellin…"

"You're not staying behind to deal with this on your own!" Mac told her.

"You have to get out." Valencia's eyes darted over to Robert. "If you get caught it's over for you."

"I agree. If Robert and Anna get caught, it's over for them. There won't be anything we can do," Mac agreed turning to Valencia. "You and me are a different story."

Robin tried to guess where he was headed.

"Nobody is after me and Val," Mac argued. "We're not running from the law and we have no reason to."

"Did you forget you just killed a man?" Anna pointed out.

"Self defense," Mac corrected her. "Don't tell me the Medellin police would be shocked to hear that this guy is trigger happy."

"I don't like where this conversation is going…" Robert mumbled.

"What better way to clear the way for you to get out of here than having me and Val stall the men who are looking for you?"

"What you're suggesting is taking the fall!" Robert shot back. "They'll arrest you both for aiding and abetting a fugitive. Never mind manslaughter."

"Why would they?" Mac asked him. "What fugitive? Who says we've seen you?"

"You can lie all you want," Anna interjected. "But we've left behind enough traces that any forensic team can establish we were at the scene of Rigato's death."

"The Medellin Police will not get a forensic team out into the Panama jungle. Trust me. They are way out of their jurisdiction here." Valencia told her. "And even if they could arrange one with Panama, by the time they get here, there will have been at least one rainfall."

"Let me and Val take care of the officers while the three of you get out of here."

"No." Anna shook her head adamantly. "No way, Mac."

"He has a point, luv," Robert admitted. "We can't get caught and Val can't go any further without jeopardizing her career any more than she already has."

Anna didn't buy it, turning back to Mac. "What kind of story can you possibly tell them that will convince them you killed Luis Rigato in self defence while at the same time convincing them your presence here had absolutely no connection to the two of us?"

"I'm here on official capacity as a Commissioner, following a drug trail that ended up in Port Charles. I borrowed Officer Munoz to act as an interpreter…"

"You're going to say you borrowed her without official permission from the Medellin police?" Robert asked.

Mac frowned, "Look, I haven't exactly ironed out all the details…but we'll make it plausible by the time they get here…"

"If it's not plausible you're going to end up in a Colombian jail!"

"He's right," Anna shuddered at the thought. "I don't like this, Mac."

"What other options do we have?" Mac asked her. "You and Robert are wanted regardless of what happened here with Rigato. Staying here like sitting ducks is not an option for you. Val can't go on the run. Either she stays here alone and tries to sell them something that'll keep her out of jail, or I stay here with her and back up her story. What we have is the word of two live officers against one dead one. Besides, I'm the one who got nicked with Rigato's bullet…my bullet wound is evidence to convince them we killed him in self-defence."

Robin listened to his argument. Hating it. Hating that as filled with holes as it was, it still made more sense than anything she could have come up with. "What if…what if the police don't buy it? What if you two end up in jail?"

Mac shook his head. "I won't."

"If he does, then I turn myself in," Robert answered for her. "If that's what it comes to, I'm taking the fall."

Robin saw her mother's eyes darken.

"We both are," Anna corrected him. "I'm the one who got us all into this mess."

"That's an argument we can have later, luv."

Robin caught the glance they exchanged and it took her back in time. The instinctual way her parents took care of one another. This was exactly the kind of argument she could envision her parents having in their old living room.

"Agreed," Mac said. "You can argue all you want later. Val and I should head into town to report what's happened here. Reporting a crime will bring the two cops to us like magnets. Give us twenty minutes or so. By them we'll have them here at the scene and stall them here long enough for them not to notice the chopper coming back to pick you up," He handed Robert a piece of paper. "This is the number of the chopper pilot in Yaviza. Tell him you're me. That we need him back. I paid him well so I don't have any doubts he'll be here fast."

"I don't want to leave you two here…" Robin protested. "Mac you're hurt!"

To ease her fears, Mac got up on steady legs to give her a hug. "I'll be fine, sweetheart. Especially if I know you're going to be safe."

When he pulled out of her embrace, Mac reached into his jacket to pull out a wad of US bills, handing them to Anna. "To pay for the ride. Once you're out of immediate danger…you can go through official channels. Get papers as Robert Scorpio and Anna Devane."

"I'll get us papers," Anna mumbled, her voice cracking. "Just concentrate on keeping yourself out of jail." She threw her arms around him. "Thank you," she mouthed, loud enough only for him to hear.

Robin heard her father say something to Valencia in Spanish, something that moistened her eyes.

Anna too moved to hug Valencia. "We owe you so much."

"I'll see you in Paris," Robert told his brother. "Or Port Charles. It doesn't matter where. I'll see you."

"You bet." Mac grinned, "I meant what I said, about you owing me a fancy steak dinner. And I don't mean some chop house that thinks it's Australian 'cause they throw the word Outback in the name…"

"Take care of Val, okay?"

"You got it."

"Go." Robert told him. "Go before I take a minute to think of how crazy this plan is and refuse to agree with it."

_Medellin, Colombia_

_Medellin Police Headquarters_

"Allow me to understand this," the Medellin Police Commissioner repeated after him. "You have a lead on Sandoval. Pardon me, you _had_ a lead…but now you've lost contact with the lead investigator who is following that lead?"

"Yes…and no," Juan Dominguez struggled to find the words fit for an official explanation. The Commissioner's unexpected visit had thrown him for a loop. He hadn't even been wearing his tie when the man waltzed through his office door without so much as a knock.

Unlike Roberto Sandoval, who had just the right combination of bullheadedness and tact, the Commissioner was as subtle as an elephant, and almost as large.

Sandoval at least would have knocked.

The Commissioner was a towering man, in every sense of the word. Tall, wide and dark, he intimidated everyone from cadet to lieutenant.

Dominguez remembered that he used to voice silent prayers of gratitude that it was Sandoval not him that had to go up against this bear of a man whenever something went wrong.

Of course now that Sandoval was gone, he was next in the line of fire.

"I believe that Officer Rigato is purposely avoiding communication with us," Dominguez explained.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"If that's what you believe then you must have a reason. Tell me what it is."

Dominguez had to make an effort to retain eye contact; mostly because the man's stare was so intense it made him uncomfortable. "I think he purposely lost officers Torres and Chavez because he wants to capture Sandoval on his own."

"Of course he does," the Commissioner told him. "Why do you think I put him in charge of the case? He wants to put Sandoval away so badly he might as well have written it on his forehead."

"Rigato hated Sandoval because Sandoval knew he was a loose canon and treated him accordingly. "

"So I was right when I suspected that no one was more motivated than Rigato to bring in the Assistant Commissioner."

Dominguez had to give him credit for that. While he always thought putting Rigato in charge of the case had been a ridiculous move, it had its merits when you figured in the power of personal revenge.

"By any means necessary, right Dominguez?"

"Right," Dominguez agreed.

"If he brings in Sandoval we'll ignore how he did it and give him the glory he wants before relegating him to a desk job. If he doesn't, I want him fired for insubordination and obstruction of justice, is that clear?"

Dominguez nodded, almost wishing for the latter, just to see the look on Rigato's face. "Yes."

"Keep me posted on each and every development and stay in close contact with Chavez and Torres. Our officers are there without official sanction from Panama. The last thing I want is to send in more men, but if this lead is worth it and you need more manpower then say so. I'll deal with the politics. Sandoval needs to be brought in, in order to end the embarrassment he's caused us. Is that clear?"

"Yes, sir."

The Commissioner straightened his broad back. "That's all."

And with those words he strode out of his office as quickly as he'd entered it.

Juan Dominguez let his shoulders slump in relief, wondering if his job was the next one to land in the toilet if Rigato didn't bring in Sandoval.

He did want justice, because that's who he was. But more than that, he wanted his old life back. A life where someone else had to stand up to the boss and where he could go back to analysing stolen artefacts and linking them to their rightful owners.

Dominguez sat down to call Torres again, wondering, in the back of his mind, what Valencia Munoz was up to right now. Hoping, in spite of his need for justice, that she'd come out of this mess unscathed.

_Payita, Panama_

"We're following a drug trail from Port Charles," Mac repeated as walked away from the edge of the forest with Valencia. "I recruited you as my translator because I needed a local cop. That's all you have to re-iterate. I couldn't go through official channels because my case is highly sensitive."

"Right. Because I would follow you like a blind woman and only open my ears when I have to translate something." Valencia said cynically. "Mac, no one that knows me will believe this!"

"You know we're following a drug lord's trail," Mac insisted. "I couldn't give you further details. So as not to jeopardize your life! Work with me here, sweetheart."

"The Port Charles Police will…agree with this story?"

"Let me worry about that."

"And if this case is so secret and sensitive why hire a cop as your translator?"

"Because I need someone familiar with law enforcement."

"What about Rigato?"

"Rigato pulled a gun on us because he thought we were on the trail of some fugitives that I knew nothing about. When we refused to come into his custody, he fired. I fired back. He died instantly."

Valencia nodded. It wasn't _that_ far from the truth. Take away his threat to kill Anna and that was loosely what happened.

"What about Robin?"

"What _about_ Robin?"

"If Rigato found us because he tailed us, he will have tailed her too. How do we explain that she is gone?"

"If Rigato was our only tail we won't have to worry about it. If not then…she… went into the jungle, to infiltrate a guerrilla camp. She's one of my cops, working undercover."

Valencia shook her head incredulously. How was it that he had an answer for everything? She stopped dead in her tracks, her knees shaking, suddenly terrified. "Mac…"

"Val, what is it?" He stopped too. One hand held on to his side, another rested on her shoulder.

"I have something to confess."

Mac raised his eyebrows.

"I am a terrible liar."

"You're a terrible liar?" Mac didn't understand.

"My mother," Valencia explained, "She is very…Catholic. When I was young she convinced me it was a sin. Growing up, whenever I tried to fool her, I couldn't do it… She always knew right away when I was lying. It's a joke now. That at least she did one thing right with me. She raised a terrible liar."

"Val…you're going to be fine at this. Because we don't have a choice. You're going to do this for your son and your mother."

She nodded, not entirely convinced.

"Hey," Mac smirked. "I didn't think you doubted yourself."

She pushed a strand of hair from her face and sighed. Tired. Doubtful. Afraid. "I don't want to be the one to mess this up…"

"You won't." It wasn't something he said to make her feel better. He sounded like he genuinely meant it. If he had that much faith in her, she had no choice but to have it in herself.

"Look. This is what we're going to do…" Mac whispered calmly, not taking his eyes off the village ahead of them.

_Payita, Panama_

_Later_

At the edge of the rainforest, the three of them sat and waited.

Aside from occasional whispered exchanges, it was a silent wait, punctured only by the sounds of the forest.

They had walked far enough away from the scene of the standoff so that they could see the area from afar.

Robin was leaning against one tree trunk, her parents against another. Her mother's head was leaning against her father's good shoulder and occasionally Robin caught them closing their eyes. There were other things she caught too. Things that made her frown. The way her father's face was paler still than it was when she first met him this morning and how he gritted his teeth each time he accidentally brushed something against his injured shoulder. The way her mother pressed her hand against the side of her head when her father's body shifted.

Robin bit her lip nervously.

Both of them had to be exceedingly uncomfortable.

Neither of them would be able to run much longer.

_And if they can't go on…then what? What do I do then?_

The question terrified her. Mac and Valencia were gone. The strongest members of their group were gone and now it was up to her to get her parents to safety.

The sheer responsibility of that made her stomach sink.

She didn't know how to keep them safe. But she'd make them think she could. She was their daughter, after all.

Robin flicked a bug off her pants and pulled a water bottle from her pack, gulping its lukewarm contents thirstily. The heat and humidity were unrelenting, and Robin decided she would have given five years of her life in exchange for one cool breeze flowing in her direction.

She checked her watch for the umpteenth time.

"What time is it?" her father asked in a whisper.

Robin was surprised that he'd noticed the gesture. "It's been almost fifteen minutes."

"Soon," he answered.

'Soon,' Robin thought, echoing his answer in her mind. Soon meant that Mac and Valencia would arrive at the standoff scene, probably with a host of curious villagers in tow and hopefully the entourage would include the two officers Valencia had seen looking for Rigato. If everything went according to plan, Robin and her parents would head into the village just as the Mac, Val and the officers were at the scene of the stand off. Hopefully, Rigato's dead body would keep the officers occupied long enough for the chopper to get them out of Payita.

If they couldn't get out of Payita soon, they were trapped. They had nowhere to go. Going back to where her parents had come from was not an option.

And if they did make it to Yaviza, then what? Where would they run to next?

"Dad…" Robin whispered. "If we make it to Yaviza, then what?" She had to ask. She couldn't take control if she didn't even know what their next step was.

"One step at a time, okay sweetheart." It was her mother who answered for him.

Robin bit her tongue. As if her mother would entertain the notion of an actual plan. Robin handed her the half empty bottle of water, but her mother shook her head.

"Drink it," Robin ordered, forcing her to take it. "You don't need to dehydrate on top of everything else."

"Well," her father chuckled. "She's your daughter alright."

Robin noticed that whatever her father's eyes glanced in her direction they rested there longer than expected. As though he couldn't stop staring at her.

"What if…" Robin started. "What if the police doesn't buy Mac's story? What if they don't come to the scene, what then?"

Anna grabbed Robin's arm, put a finger to her lips, and pointed into the distance. "Look…"

Robin saw them moving towards the forest. Valencia and Mac, two other men dressed in city clothes, in addition to a small throng of curious villagers that were following them on their heels.

"As soon as they're in the forest, we head towards the village," Anna whispered in her ear. "Got it?"

Robin nodded, her heart racing, as she watched the figures disappear into the rainforest.

_Stay safe, Mac._

Robin pushed the thought of him to the back of her mind, grabbing her pack as she watched her father slip an arm underneath her mother's, whispering something in her ear, before turning back to Robin.

"Let's go."

No one saw them walking back into the village.

The commotion that took place at the scene of Rigato's shooting was the perfect cover.

Robert instructed both of them to head over to the field where the helicopter would land while he went in search of a phone. "Neither of you speak Spanish and we'll attract less attention if we split up."

"Where will you find a phone?" Robin asked.

"I saw a supply store this morning. I'm sure they'll have a phone."

Robin and Anna did as he told them, heading towards the field on the other side of the village. It was an open area where hiding would be harder than in forest they had left behind, but like everything else it too was surrounded by the rainforest, if they again moved to its edge they would find suitable cover until the chopper arrived, and that's exactly what Robin and Anna did.

"How will Dad know where to find us?" Robin asked her.

"He'll find us because this is exactly where he'd be hiding if he were here."

Robin's lips lifted into a smile, "Right." The fact that her parents had been separated for more than a decade didn't seem to come in to play when it came to their ability to read each other's minds. Robin moved a hand to her mother's face, her smile fading. "Does it hurt a lot?"

"When you touch it, it does." Her mother pushed her hand away

It was hard to tear her eyes away from her mother's bruised face. "You look awful, Mom."

"See how good you look after breaking out of a Colombian jail and hiking through the jungle for two days."

Robin rolled her eyes, and as she did spotted a jet plane flying through the blue skies above them. What she wouldn't give to be inside it, with her parents next to her, flying far away from here. It didn't matter what the destination was.

Anywhere but here.

The image brought back her father's earlier words.

_"We could really use someone to swoop in here in a private jet right now and whisk us out of Payita…"_

Robin's heart skipped a beat. What her father wanted was wishful thinking. Much like her current need for a cool breeze.

"But there is someone who could…"

"Who could what?" Her mother looked at her.

Robin hadn't realized that she mumbled the words aloud. She pushed herself off the ground. Standing up, she put a hand on her mother's shoulder.

It was a long shot, but it was worth a try. Any plan was better than no plan.

"Robin, what are you doing? Sit down!" Anna scolded her. "Someone might see you."

"I want to go back into town and see if I can find Dad."

"Why?"

"There's something I need to tell him."

Anna tried to grab her and make her sit back down. "Tell him when he gets here."

"Not only that," Robin explained. "I need a phone."

"What for?"

"I have an idea."

"An idea?"

It was too complicated to explain. Never mind that her mother would probably tell her it was crazy. And that she wouldn't stand for it. Robin dropped her pack and stared across the grass towards the village. "I'm going to go look for Dad."

"Robin…"

"I'm going." Robin informed her. She wasn't about to ask for permission.

"I see that," her mother shot back, and Robin could have sworn she heard a hint of amusement in her voice. "Just…be careful."

Robin half-walked, half-ran back into the village, her eyes darting around. She didn't look back, hating that she left her mother alone. If anyone were to find her she was unarmed and in no shape to defend herself.

As she approached the village Robin spotted people working in tiny plots of land. Most of them were older and they paid her no attention. The kids she'd seen earlier were no where in sight. They had probably followed Mac and Valencia to the edge of the forest. Where the action was.

"Robin?"

Robin turned to see her father emerge from behind a lone farmhouse. He was obviously better at this staying low game than she was. "Dad?"

He was by her side in an instant. "Where are you going?"

"Did you make the call?" she asked him.

There was a grin on his pale face. It had to be good news. "Yeah…he said he's coming in about half an hour. He was sitting at the airstrip in Yaviza. He said he needed to gas up the chopper."

"Dad…was anyone at the shop?"

"Just the shopkeeper. He said everyone else had gone to the forest…to see what was happening with the outsider cops'." His grin deepened, "I paid him a nice fee to use the phone. I don't think he'll mention it to anyone."

"I want to make a call too."

"Robin, I want to get us out of here first. You can make a call once we get to Yaviza."

"We're short on time, aren't we? It's important I make this call as soon as possible."

"To who?" he asked her, his face serious now. The sun burned down on both of them. Robert nudged her into the shade of a chicken coop, away from view of anyone who might have noticed them talking together.

"Someone who might be able to get us out of Panama."

"Fine. Let's walk back to the store. Casually," he instructed her. "And while we're doing that, tell me more…"

Robin did as he asked and when they were inside the small, windowless supply store, she watched as her father handed the man behind the counter two of Mac's twenty dollar bills. The man smiled widely when he pulled out an old, black rotary telephone and plopped it on the counter in front of her, pushing away a sack of rice to make room for it.

Robin swallowed as she wiped a thin layer of sweat from her forehead. She wanted to ask him if it dialled long distance but then remembered her father's insistence that she say nothing to the man inside the shop.

Robin glanced first at her father and then started dialling the number she knew by heart.

_Please be home. Please._

There was a long moment of silence before the number finally rang at the other end.

It rang once. Twice. Three times. Four times.

Finally the ringing stopped and a familiar voice picked up at the other end. Relief flooded Robin.

"Hi…" She barely chocked out the first word.

"Robin?" The voice at the other end was sleepy.

"Yeah…it's me. I'm sorry I woke you. I don't have much time to talk and what I'm going to tell you is going to sound crazy…and I wouldn't ask you this if I had any other choice, but I, we, really, _really_ need your help…"


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter XXX **

_Payita, Panama_

The helicopter came, just as Robert promised.

Less than an hour after the two phone calls it landed on the grassy meadow, and, aside from a couple of farmers that stared in their direction, no one saw them take off.

Everyone in the village was too engrossed in what was happening at the edge of the rainforest.

Within minutes after it landed, the helicopter was airborne again. Robert sat in the front, next to the pilot.

Anna wondered how many of Mac's bills the trip was costing then. And how much more the pilot's silence would cost on top of it.

By the time they landed in Yaviza, Anna felt like days had passed since she'd woken up this morning. How could so much have happened in the span of a few hours? Her exhaustion was so profound now that she was certain that if it wasn't for the ear shattering noise of the helicopter she wouldn't have been able to keep her eyes open.

After they touched ground, Robin jumped out of the chopper ahead of her, holding out her hand for her mother. Anna hoped Robin wouldn't notice just how much she appreciated the gesture.

Hair whipped frantically around both their heads, next to the whirring helicopter blades, and Anna watched as Robert exchanged words with the pilot before jumping out himself.

He walked towards them and put an arm around her shoulders. "He said we can wait over there!" Robert yelled, pointing to what looked like an empty, makeshift aircraft hangar. It didn't seem big enough to hold anything larger than a car.

Behind them, the helicopter took off again and when it disappeared in the horizon, the noise level died down enough to have a normal conversation.

"Did he say where he was going?"

Robert nodded. "He did."

Anna eyed him. "Do you believe him?"

He answered her with a grim smile and a shake of the head. "What I believe is that cops are the last people he wants to mingle with."

They walked into the empty hangar. It reeked of oil and aircraft fuel.

"Why don't you wait behind this thing…outside…" Robert suggested, making a face that told her he couldn't stomach the smell or the stale air inside. Now that the glaring sun hovered directly above them, the heat was nearly unbearable. If they couldn't stand to be inside the building, they'd have to look for a shady spot, maybe even head towards the forest that surrounded the airstrip. Unlike the grassy area in Payita, this strip resembled an actual airfield. It came complete with a manned fuelling station and hangar. And, most importantly, it was far enough away from the town that there wouldn't be any villagers stumbling through the area.

"That guy's staring at us," Robin whispered, not wanting to point to the lone man that sat on a cement step near what looked like the fuelling station.

"The pilot told me he radioed him," Robert told her. "He let him know we'd be waiting around for the day."

"I don't like the way he's looking at us."

"Just ignore him and keep walking," Robert told her. "Go around the hangar."

"What about that cabin?" Anna asked, eyeing the shed-size house, near the fuelling station.

"Off limits apparently," Robert answered.

They walked around the hangar until they found an area of shade. Wearily Anna and Robin sank to the ground, dropping their packs next to them.

Robert kept standing.

"Robert…?"

"I want to do a quick walk-around, to check out the area. Stay here."

Anna was about to protest, wanting to remind him he desperately needed to rest, but when she caught the way he tightened his lips in response to the argument he was expecting, she didn't bother. She knew it was futile. Besides, he was right. Not checking out their surroundings was a careless, unprofessional thing to do. If she had the energy to get back up, Anna would have insisted on coming along.

"Be careful," was all she said.

"I'll go with you," Robin told him.

He shook his head. "No. Stay here."

"I can help…"

Anna shot Robin a look that warned her not to press it. Robert needed his energy for better things.

Robin got the hint and stopped in mid-sentence waiting, until he left to voice her irritation.

"Dad hasn't changed one bit," she announced incredulously. "He's still the same stubborn, unyielding…"

Anna's lips curled into a smile. "Isn't he?"

Robin's irritation faded, "I can't believe he's back, Mom. That he's really here with us. He's different, but he's also the same. Does that make sense?"

Anna nodded. "It does. But, while we're on the subject... there's something I can't believe."

Robin eyed her. "What?"

Anna's expression changed to one of irritation, "That you called my sister to come and rescue us!"

_Payita, Panama_

If Valencia Munoz wasn't a great liar then she was definitely a very good actress, Mac Scorpio decided.

While he had comfortably slipped into the role of the Commissioner whose assignment had taken an unexpectedly deadly turn, hers was a more difficult part.

He watched her answer the endless questions the two officers flung at her, the four of them standing only a few feet from Luis Rigato's dead body.

There was just the right combination of shock and composure in her voice. She was an officer first, an officer who knew how to stay calm and present the facts. But she was also a woman who'd just seen one of her own gunned down, it wouldn't make sense to be devoid of emotion and distress. 'And she's not,' he thought, admiring the way she handled the officers. 'She's playing the part perfectly.'

Mac wished he spoke Spanish. He needed to hear exactly what she was telling the officers, as he had no doubts that they'd be placed in separate interrogation rooms as soon as they left Payita. To compensate, he jumped in after every question she answered and demanded a translation, even as the officers tried to confuse her by throwing in new questions before she had the chance to answer the previous ones.

_"He asked why we were here in this spot, at the rim of the forest?"_

_"He's asking again what Rigato accused us of."_

_"He wants to know what we know about Sandoval."_

_"He is asking again for details of your mission."_

_"He wants to see your papers again."_

The questions were all over the place and Mac saw that one of the officers was writing them down furiously in a small, black notebook.

Their method of interrogation was as scattered as the questions themselves and Mac didn't have to understand Spanish to realize that the two officers were way out of their element. Had these been his officers, he'd have cringed with embarrassment.

For starters, they couldn't decide what to do with Rigato's body. Moving it might destroy crucial evidence. In the absence of a forensic team, the very least they needed was a camera to preserve the crime scene evidence on film, yet neither of them, or anyone else in town for that matter, seemed to have so much as an old Kodak or even a mobile phone that could take photos.

Mac glanced in the direction where Rigato lay and saw a handful of bugs crawling over his bloodied back. Maybe moving the body wouldn't have been such a bad idea after all. If he wasn't too busy being grilled, Mac might've offered the officers some advice.

As it was, they all stood in the jungle, guarding the body, presumably waiting for back-up, surrounded by dozens of curious children that no one could clear out, no matter how many threats the officers hurled at them. At one point, Chavez even drew his gun at them, a gesture that made Valencia draw hers and point it at him. For a moment it looked like there might be a second shoot-out. Instead Valencia lowered her weapon and demanded Chavez do the same. At least that's what it looked like.

And while they waited and argued, the officers began their impromptu interrogation.

'What a mess of an investigation,' Mac Scorpio thought. Given their numerous witnesses, Mac doubted that this questioning would hold up in a court of law. Not that this was a bad thing.

"Officer Torres is asking me where exactly Rigato came from when we first saw him," Valencia told him, pulling him back into the conversation.

"He caught us from behind." Mac explained, recounting the story as if it was fact. "He had his weapon drawn on first contact. He spoke in Spanish so what he said comes to me from Officer Munoz. According to Officer Munoz, Officer Rigato accused us of knowing the whereabouts of Assistant Commissioner Roberto Sandoval. He accused us of trailing him and he demanded we tell him what we knew."

Mac had already told them this. More than once. But he repeated it again.

If it bought Robert, Anna and Robin time, he'd gladly spent the rest of the day going over what happened. Especially now that he had it all memorized, down to the last detail. And having Valencia repeat it over and over to the officers meant they'd keep their stories straight.

"What next?" Torres pressed via Valencia.

"I told him we had no connection to your missing Commissioner. Officer Rigato didn't believe us. He kept his weapon pointed at us while accusing us of lying and covering up."

"And then?"

"I told him who I was. I offered to show him my identification." Mac paused. "But I didn't get the chance… In spite of Officer Munoz's insistence, Officer Rigato believed that I was drawing a weapon. I had no doubt he was about to fire…and I was correct. I then did what every trained officer would have done in my position. I drew my weapon in self defence and fired back."

Mac's side throbbed; painfully reminding him that Rigato did indeed discharge his weapon. That part wasn't fabricated and it made for perfect evidence. His eyelids closed, and when they did a heavy blanket of darkness almost stopped him from opening them again.

He took a deep breath and forced them back open, seeing the surrounding trees blur in front of him.

_"Bastante! Esta herido!"_ Mac heard Valencia yelling at the same time as she grabbed his arm.

"Enough questions…" She told him, with a concerned frown. "You were shot, Mac. You need to get out of this jungle and lie down."

"I'm fine," he told her. "If the officers want to continue this here, then I'm fine with that. They have my full co-operation to…

"I am _not_ fine with that!" she shot back. "There is no need to do this here."

Valencia kept arguing with the two officers. Words flew out in rapid Spanish and the fact that one of the officers' raised an arm in defeat told him Valencia won.

"Officer Torres is going to accompany us back into Payita," Val told him, still holding on to this arm. "Officer Chavez will stay with the body until the backup arrives from Medellin. He says they will be here in a few hours."

Mac nodded, "Fine."

He glanced up into the sky as they walked away from the jungle's edge, hoping that Robert, Anna and Robin were far away from here.

_Yaviza, Panama_

Robin Scorpio met her mother's annoyed look with a matching one of her own.

"I called Alex because she's the only person I know who's got a private jet on stand-by and who'd take it to the ends of the world for you, no questions asked!"

"Alex is a doctor, Robin! A world-renowned researcher! I don't want her involved in this mess!"

"Forgive me if Alex's reputation wasn't the first thing on my mind when I thought of ways to keep you and Dad alive!"

Anna stopped just short of rolling her eyes. How did her daughter end up with a stubbornness that quite possibly exceeded her own?

"I'm _not_ apologizing for this," Robin added sharply.

"I just wish you'd thought of the consequences this could have for her…"

"Right." Robin chuckled. "I suppose you gave lot of thought to the consequences of smuggling a multi-million dollar, stolen mask to a Colombian drug lord…"

Anna cringed. _That one was below the belt, sweetheart_. Maybe if her head wasn't pounding quite so hard she'd have put up a better fight. Instead, she sighed in defeat. "Fine. I won't argue that. Tell me…what exactly does Alex know."

"She knows about Dad. I also told her you're in trouble with the law. And that neither of you have papers."

"Does she know how _much_ trouble?"

"I didn't tell her the entire Medellin police force was after you, no."

This time Anna did roll her eyes.

Robin gave her triumphant look. "Personally, I think calling Alex was one of my more brilliant ideas."

Anna sighed, leaning against the corrugated iron wall. It felt hot against her back. "I didn't know you and my sister were close. Or close enough to know her phone number by heart."

"You said it yourself," Robin explained. "Alex is a brilliant doctor. As a med student, I couldn't ask for a better resource. I often call or e-mail her when I need help with stuff. And I got the feeling she really wanted to get to know me after we met in Pine Valley. At first, I felt like we had a one-sided relationship…" Robin grinned. "You know, me using her to pick her brains, but then, a few months ago, when she went away on this vacation to the South Pacific, and I realized I missed the conversations we had more than anything else. When she got back she came to spend a week with me in Paris. She said she loves that I'm close by…that it made her feel like she finally had a family member on the same continent. Plus, Alex likes Paris. It's only an hour from Budapest by plane. She likes to say I give her an excuse to go shopping on the Champs Elysees."

Anna bit her lip. When she first came to Paris all those weeks ago she'd been so consumed by grief she paid little attention to the everyday details of Robin's life. She hadn't wanted Robin to share her grief, and Robin, being Robin, had given her all the space she needed.

Anna had kept Robin at arm's length, afraid that if she let her come too close, her melancholy might rub off on her daughter. As a result, she barely knew her daughter anymore. Anna had no idea who Robin's closest friends were.

She'd never have suspected that exclusive circle included her own twin sister.

Anna watched as Robin pulled a bottle of pills from her pack, checking her watch before she swallowed two, and then pulled out a separate bottle from which she swallowed one more with a long sip of water from her flask.

"Is it alright for your meds, this heat?" Anna asked her, her earlier irritation forgotten. Sometimes, Robin's sheer strength of will made her forget her daughter had a virus. Yet each time she saw Robin taking the protocol, it was a stark reminder of the fragility of her life. It made Anna want to do everything in her power to keep her safe.

Robin shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. I've never had to take them near the equator before."

Anna swallowed, hating the risk Robin had taken in coming here. Hating even more that it was her recklessness that made her daughter take it.

"Mom…"

"What is it?"

"Does Dad know about the HIV?"

"No." Anna shook her head. "He's only just started remembering. I haven't had time to tell him much."

"Good," Robin said. "I want to wait 'til we're out of here. Until he's safe. Then I'd like to tell him myself."

Anna nodded, remembering the devastation she felt when she first found out, grateful that at least Robert wouldn't have to face it alone.

"I know it's unbearably hot…but you should roll down your sleeves," Anna said softly. "Your hands are already covered in mosquito bites."

Robin took another sip of water. "Speaking of mosquitoes, tell me you took anti-malaria drugs before coming here, yes?"

Anna cringed, "I didn't think we were talking about me."

"You didn't, did you? Of course you didn't. What am I thinking?"

"Robin..."

"You fret about me, Mom…you worry, and you try to protect me and keep me safe from all the crazy things you do, and yet you know what hurts me the most? That you're so careless with your own life that I'm scared you might not even be around to see me graduate from Med School!"

Robin's cheeks flushed red with a mix of anger and frustration and thick tears now pooled at the rim of her eyes.

Anna didn't know what to say. Torn between wanting to wring her neck and wanting to pull her into a hug and not let go. But, as if to save her the trouble of deciding between the two, Robin had already turned away from her, deftly wiping away the tears before they had a chance to fall down.

"I'm sorry…" Robin mumbled without looking at her. "I don't know where that came from."

Anna took a deep breath, putting her hand on Robin's heart. "It came from there. It's okay, sweetheart. You're right. Don't apologize. What I did was reckless and selfish…you _deserve _an explanation, only I'm not sure I have one to give you. After Leora died I just felt so…empty."

Robin took the hand that Anna had placed on her heart and held on to it. "I know, Mom. It's okay…" Somehow Robin understood, that which she didn't understand herself. Her daughter's lips curled into a smile, "_Really_. It's okay. Sometimes I don't know why I do the things I do either, and then I remember I'm your kid and it helps me understand."

Anna smiled a lop-sided smile. "Thanks. I think…"

"Everything alright, you two?"

Neither of them had noticed Robert come back.

"Fine. How was your reconnoitring?"

He sat down beside her, his shirt drenched in sweat. "I think we're okay to stay here. As long as no one from the Medellin police lands here before your sister."

"Good." Anna passed him a bottle of water.

Robert checked his watch before he took the bottle from her, "Your sister's in a tight race with the night, isn't she?"

"She is," Anna agreed. She'd hoped he wouldn't mention the additional obstacle that stood in their way. The one she didn't want to think about. If Alex's jet didn't get here before dark, she'd have to wait until sunrise to land. The airstrip wasn't equipped for nighttime landings.

And by morning, Alex's jet certainly wouldn't be the only plane landing here. Given what had happened, planes and helicopters would likely be coming and going to and from Payita from here. That's if Mac and Valencia managed to keep the officers there overnight to begin with.

"She'll make it," Robin told them with a certainty that Anna didn't feel.

She stood up and stretched her legs.

"Where are you going?" Anna asked.

"I'm going to…the bathroom behind these trees and… neither of you are going to follow me," Robin answered.

Robert chuckled. "We will if you don't come out in ten minutes."

Anna watched her walk into the rainforest, leaning against Robert with a sigh. "You'd think when you're on the run for you life you wouldn't notice things like electricity…but I have to say, I really miss running water."

"Anna…"

"Hmm?"

"I thought…when regained my memory, I remembered so much that I thought my memories were complete. But I was wrong. They're not."

His voice was low, serious. He was whispering so that Robin couldn't hear. Anna turned to face him, serious too now. "What do you mean?"

"I can't remember your sister. I've tried to, since Robin made the call…I'll say her name in my mind and try to picture her…and I can't. I have no idea."

Anna laughed. "_That's_ what's troubling you?"

His eyes narrowed, unsure what to make of her reaction. "I thought that…"

"Robert, you can't remember Alex… because you didn't know her!"

He didn't understand.

"I didn't know I had another sister until recently. Believe me, it's still a shock to me sometimes."

Relief settled on Robert's face. "You're serious?"

"Yeah, it's long story…"

"So what's Alex like?"

"She's…" Anna paused to think about the question. What _was_ Alex really like? "She's…a physician. She's very smart. Cool. Composed. Very different from me. But we do look alike."

"Really?"

Anna smirked. "Really."

_Payita, Panama_

"Lie down," Valencia Munoz told Mac, when they were back in the village, where the owner of the only grocery store had found a cot to put in his storage room.

"I'd rather not…" he mumbled, putting up a half-hearted fight.

"I did not ask you a question," she replied, with a less-than-gentle nudge that pushed him down onto the makeshift bed. After a few days of speaking it, the English was rolling off her tongue easily now. Everything she'd learned in Miami was coming back to her.

She stared at Mac Scorpio in disbelief.

He was ghostly pale and the bandage that Robert had fixed on his side was soaked in blood. Drops of sweat glistened on his forehead and Valencia was certain that had they stayed in the jungle much longer he would have passed out.

"If they wanted to keep us talking there, that's their right…"

"No it's not!" Valencia shot a dirty look at Officer Torres who was watching them. "There is no reason to have that interrogation in the middle of the jungle, next to Rigato's body, where a dozen village kids are watching us! It's stupid. It's unprofessional."

"It's not like they have much choice, given that there's no one else to keep an eye on the body…" he reasoned, gratefully taking a sip of water from a bottle she found in the shop.

Valencia frowned. She knew that wasn't the reason he wanted to stay in the jungle. It was because every extra minute there, would buy Robert, Anna and Robin an extra minute. Not that it was necessary at this point, she thought. They'd both heard the helicopter leaving Payita and they had to assume the three of them were on it. Whether they continued their questioning here in town, or on the outskirts of the forest was irrelevant now. Besides, Mac collapsing wouldn't help anyone.

"It is like they are punishing you because you didn't die like Rigato," she said angrily. "But he shot you, just like you shot him. You're hurt and you need a doctor…and we are not under arrest. We are helping them understand what happened." Valencia shot another angry look at Torres. "_Entiendes_?" Of course he didn't understand. She was almost certain he didn't speak English, but now that they'd slipped into their roles, she knew that neither she nor Mac would say anything out of character. Cops had bigger secrets than not admitting to speaking a foreign language.

She didn't notice until now that her hands were shaking.

"Val…listen…" she heard Mac mumble. "I'm sorry I got you into this mess."

It might have been exactly what Commissioner Scorpio would have said to the woman he'd recruited to help him out on his mission. Fortunately, the double meaning, would be lost on Torres. If he spoke English, that is.

Valencia said nothing.

Oddly enough, in spite of the mess they were in, she wasn't sorry.

She wasn't sorry because she couldn't last remember a man whose welfare she cared enough about that it made her hands tremble when she saw him hurt. And she wasn't sorry that every time his eyes glanced in her direction it made her feel…_something_.

"Don't apologize," she finally mumbled. "It's pointless."

'What's pointless is what you're thinking…' she thought tiredly. Mac Scorpio didn't stay behind because he _wanted_ to. He stayed behind because he was a good man. A decent man. 'That's why…not because of anything else.'

His gaze held hers. Longer than she expected. As if to tell her that maybe what she was feeling wasn't so crazy after all.

_Yaviza, Panama_

_Later_

The sun was sinking into the treetops.

It barely hovered above the forest canopy now and Anna suspected it would be a matter of minutes before it would disappear behind it, leaving them in total darkness.

"She's not going to make it."

Anna cringed. She hated that, after hours of tired silence between the three of them, those were Robert's first words.

Words of defeat.

They already had their first defeat this afternoon when the jet plane that landed here wasn't her sister's but one carrying what were undoubtedly Colombian officers heading for Payita.

At first they'd all been ecstatic to see the plane, but then Robert's face had darkened. "It can't be her…it's too soon…not possible…"

They'd rushed into the jungle to hide, just quickly enough to miss the small army of officers descending from the plane. Anna's heart had skipped a few beats when they spied one of them interrogating the lone man at the fuelling station. But, thankfully, none of the officers stayed behind. Anna wasn't sure why, but the man obviously hadn't mentioned their presence to the officer. All the officers boarded the same chopper that had brought them here earlier and had now flown back to the airfield. They had to squeeze into it. They were heading for Payita, no doubt.

"Come on, luv…" Robert stood up shakily and held out his hand to her, his voice apologetic, as it brought her back to the present. "We're almost out of water. We have to head into town before it gets completely dark."

"No." Anna shook her head, "Not yet."

Robin looked torn. Torn between being unwilling to give up and knowing that her father was absolutely right in his decision to start walking away from the airfield.

"Dad's right…" she said softly, reaching for her pack. "In a few minutes it'll be too dark to land."

"No," Anna insisted, making no move to get up.

"We're not leaving you here."

"Then stay with me."

"Mom, we can't stay here!"

All three of them geared up for a battle of wills.

And not one of them noticed the bright lights of the approaching jet in the evening sky.


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter XXXI **

_Yaviza, Panama_

It was Robert who first saw the plane.

"Wait…" he said to Robin, who was about to launch into another argument of how her mother's injuries made her incapable of making a single logical decision at this point.

"I'm not a med school student, but I'm quite certain that hitting your head and losing your mind are not the same thing…"

"Stop it! Both of you!" Robert interrupted. "Look up!"

He could hear it now too. It was a marvellous sight that brought a giant smile to his face. "I think this could be her…"

He used his good arm to usher them behind the hangar. "But we don't know for sure…"

The plane made a fast and bumpy descent, making Robert think the pilot wasn't used to this kind of terrain. He cringed as he watched the jet brake. The plane used the entire landing strip before coming to fierce and sudden stop. Then it turned around and taxied to the fuelling station. Its passenger door opened before coming to a full stop. Although the fading light was making it difficult to see clearly, there was no mistaking the woman who exited the plane.

Robert's jaw dropped when he saw her.

It was like seeing Anna emerge from the plane. Same height, same frame, same hair…same _face_. The resemblance was eerie.

He stood dumbstruck, barely noticing that Robin was running towards her, embracing Alex in an enthusiastic hug.

"I knew it!" he heard Robin tell her. "I knew you'd make it!"

Next to Robert, Anna rolled her eyes, "Did you hear that?"

"You could have mentioned she was your identical twin…" Robert started, unable to tear his eyes off Alex.

"Imagine_ my_ shock when I first saw her."

"How is that possible?"

"It's a long story."

She didn't have a chance to say any more, when Alex approached, pulling Anna into a hug. When they let go of each other, Robert watched as Alex reached out to touch her sister's face in shock, "Oh god…Anna…what happened to you?"

Her voice was slightly different from Anna's. Her accent more distinctly English.

"You should see the other guy."

Alex's eyes narrowed as her fingers traced the bloodied bruise that ran down the side of Anna's face. "Not funny."

"Doctor Marick…" a man's voice interrupted them, from the airstrip. "I need to fuel the plane immediately! If not it will be too late to take off again tonight." The man, who Robert suspected was the pilot, had an Eastern European accent.

Alex didn't bother introducing herself to Robert. "Get on the plane," she ordered them. "We'll need to leave right away."

"You need to fuel first. Let me help you talk to the guy at the fuelling station," Robert offered, as Anna and Robin got on the jet.

"I'd rather you got in the plane," Alex told him.

"Do you speak, Spanish?" he asked her.

"No."

"Then I'm coming with you."

"Fine."

The two of them ran towards the fuel station where the pilot was attempting to pay for fuel with a credit card.

Robert handed the man the handful of US dollar bills he had left.

_"Eres loco?"_ The man pointed to the fuel gauge in disbelief, "_No es bastante_!" He pushed away the pilot's credit card. "_Solamente dinero_."

Robert's heart sank. They were fighting for every second of daylight and this man was going to stall them because the pilot didn't have cash.

Trying to figure out an alternative, Robert didn't notice that Alex had removed a thick gold and diamond bracelet from her wrist.

"_Bastante_?" she asked the man, handing him the bracelet.

The attendant eyed her, as well as the bracelet he was holding in the palm of his hand now. His face broke into a satisfied smile. "_Ahora…si_."

The two of them stood on the tarmac, while the plane was being fuelled and the pilot went to inspect the fuselage.

"Thanks for that," Robert told Alex.

"When my husband asks me what I did with his anniversary gift, you can thank me by explaining it to him."

"Your husband…does he know you're here?"

"No," Alex shook her head, "He was away on business in London when Robin called. It's probably better he doesn't know. He'd…worry."

"I don't blame him. If you get caught with us, you could be in a lot of trouble."

"We won't get caught."

Robert smiled, and then he held out his hand. "I'm Robert Scorpio."

"I know," she answered, not returning his smile. Instead she looked at him as though debating what to do next, before finally, reluctantly extending her own hand, "Alexandra Marick."

Her demeanour was decidedly cooler than Anna's but she was strikingly beautiful. Seeing her made Robert realize that Anna would be just as stunning once her face wasn't a mess of bruises and scratches.

Alex made no effort at small talk. She ordered him into the plane as soon as it was refuelled and ready for take-off.

The take-off was as rough as the landing and for a moment Robert doubted the pilot could get the plane in the air before the airstrip ran out. His doubts vanished, when seconds later, he saw a dark mass of trees several hundred feet below him.

"That was close," Robert mumbled, exhaling a deep relieved breath. He glanced over at Anna and Robin who were seated on a leather banquette that ran alongside the wall behind the cockpit. No one said a word and they looked as shell shocked as he did. They were probably wondering the same thing he was. Was it all real? After everything that happened, were they were really sitting inside a luxury jet, flying out of the continent.

He felt a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of Mac and Valencia, still in Payita.

It was Alex who broke the silence. "There's a room in the back, with a bed and washroom and shower. I'd like to have a look at you there…" She turned to Anna, then Robert. "You look like hell, both of you."

A medical exam would be easier than a slew of questions, Robert decided. But there were other, more pressing matters at hand. Like the fact that neither he nor Anna had any papers.

"Where are we headed?" he asked Alex.

"We'll make a fuelling stop off the coast of West Africa. Then we're heading to Hungary."

"Hungary?" He knew she'd come from there, but he was hoping that wasn't their destination. "Anna and I have no papers," he explained to Alex. "We won't be able to go through customs."

Alex got up and picked up her purse, which sat on the floor next to Robin. She pulled out two booklets that looked like passports, one burgundy, the other blue. She handed each of them one. "Robin told me…you're lucky my husband's cousin was staying with us the night you called. I… borrowed his passport, and, you," she turned to Anna. "You'll be me."

"What about you?" Anna asked her.

"I'll stay on the plane with Karel. Another pilot will board the plane and take it to a smaller regional airport after landing in Budapest. One where we won't need to go through customs."

Robert opened the passport to look at the photo inside. It was that of a clean-shaven man in his fifties. He had dark blonde hair and blue eyes. The man wasn't exactly his double, but there was definitely a reasonable likeness. Robert's hand moved to the beard on his chin.

"There's a razor and shaving cream in the washroom," Alex told him.

"I have a very visible scar that runs along my jaw," he explained.

"Keep the beard then."

"I also don't speak a word of Hungarian."

"Tell them you grew up abroad," Alex reasoned. "Lots of people have ethnic names and dual citizenship and no idea how to speak their native tongue."

Robert nodded. Alex seemed to have an answer for everything. Why was he such a nervous wreck anyway? They'd survived the worst. The rest was a piece of cake by comparison.

_You're a wreck because the thought of screwing up now is unbearable._

"You're exhausted. Don't worry about it. It's going to work," Alex re-iterated.

"You're right." He managed a smile for Robin's sake. It had to work, even if he'd feel a lot better trying to enter say, Australia as an Australian.

"Are you hungry?" Alex asked. "I didn't have much time, but I got some crisps, biscuits and juice at the airport. Please take whatever you'd like." She pointed to a plastic bag that sat near the base of the banquette. "There's wine and water in the mini-bar fridge. Normally we have food on board, but because it wasn't a scheduled flight…"

"It's perfect, Alex…" Anna told her.

"Now that you mention it, I _am_ starving," Robin admitted, bending down to grab the plastic bag.

"You thought of everything," Robert told Alex. It was the truth. For someone who wasn't in the 'business' she was very adept at this.

"You mentioned you have a shower on board," Anna said to Alex. "More than food or rest you have no idea how much I would love to take a long, cool shower."

"I'm not convinced you can stand up long enough for a long shower," Alex replied. Robert noticed that, as it did every time she spoke to her sister, Alex's face softened. While he couldn't quite figure out Alex's feelings towards him, it was obvious she loved Anna.

"I'll go with you, Mom…" Robin told them.

"You could use some rest too," Alex told her. "I'll go. It'll give me an excuse to check her out."

Anna got up. "Thanks to both of your offers, but I can still take a shower on my own." That she nearly stumbled after her second step didn't help her argument and Alex rushed to her side.

"I don't think so…" Alex told her, not letting go of Anna's arm.

Robert watched them both with a hint of amusement. "I see your mom finally met her match."

Robin's smirk matched his. "I think you're right."

"I don't know if I thanked you yet," he told her when Anna and Alex were out of earshot. "I was sceptical when you first called your aunt, especially when you told me she was in Europe…but your idea, it was brilliant." Robert thought back to how Alex had bartered for the fuel and thought to arrange for passports. "I couldn't have arranged for a better rescue."

Robin's cheeks blushed, "I got lucky, that's all."

"No," Robert countered. "You knew exactly who had the means and the motivation to help us, and, at a time when most people lose their wits, you took that knowledge and acted on it. Lucky is that Alex happens to be a doctor on top of it all."

This time Robin acknowledged the compliment with a nod. "Thanks. Maybe I am a chip off the old block."

There were other things he wanted to say to her, starting with how proud he was of who she'd become since he'd last seen her. That he still had a hard time to keep from staring at her, because the sight of her still took his breath away.

But he didn't want to overwhelm her. There would be time later.

He caught her stifling a yawn after she crumpled up an empty bag of paprika chips.

"Why don't you take the bed in the rear and get some sleep?" he suggested. "It's a long flight to Hungary."

But Robin had already curled her legs up on the banquette she was sitting on. "Mom will need it."

"Maybe there's room for two?"

"Then you should join Mom." She stood back up to grab a blanket she spotted in an overhead bin, before once again making herself comfortable. "How do you think Mac and Val are doing?"

"I don't know…" Robert answered, truthfully. He wished he did. "I have a feeling Mac would be relieved to know you're here. In a plane headed for Europe."

"He should be here too," Robin said softly.

"Yeah," Robert agreed. "He should."

There was nothing else to say. He was the one who should be fighting for his family, not his brother. Mac had already filled his shoes for far too long.

The thought plagued him as he watched Robin fall asleep across from him. The steady hum of the plane's engines, combined with his own exhaustion, made him doze off too, but not deep enough so as not to hear Alex return to the cabin.

"Is…she…is Anna alright?" he mumbled, jerked back into wakefulness. Robin was still fast asleep across from him, her blanket now lying on the floor of the plane.

Robert watched as Alex picked it up and covered her with it.

Alex frowned, pausing. "No, she's not. She's a mess."

Her answer wasn't exactly a revelation, but he hadn't expected to hear the truth so bluntly. So much for her bedside manner.

"I'd like to have a look at your shoulder," Alex continued, her voice almost a whisper now so as not to wake Robin. "Anna says you were shot."

"It's okay. I'm…fine."

"Take off your shirt, Mr. Scorpio."

He managed a reluctant smile. "But Dr. Marick, we've only just met."

Her eyes lit up in amusement. She offered him her first smile and it made her look so much like Anna, it was eerie. "I think one Devane is all you can handle."

Robert chuckled, "You're probably right."

She went to get a medical bag from the plane's washroom and helped him take off his shirt, and then, with a gentleness that surprised him, undid the dressing on his wound and examined it.

"How long ago?" she asked.

"A few days ago. I had a doctor patch it up after it happened."

"He did a good job. Are you taking antibiotics?"

Robert nodded, "I was. But they got lost in the jungle."

"You'll need to go back on them. Your shoulder's infected. In the meantime, I'll clean it and redo the dressing."

"Could I take a shower before you do that?" Robert asked, not sure how he felt about her being in such close proximity to him in his current state.

"Sure…" she smirked. "I'm not going anywhere."

Robert saw the same hint of amusement in her eyes again. He liked her directness. He also liked how she got things done. It was a frank efficiency he could well identify with.

"There's a cupboard in the bedroom, where Dimitri and I keep some spare clothes. My husband's not as tall as you, but I think you'll fit into his clothes."

"Thank you." Ill-fitting was a better alternative to torn and dirty.

In the shower, the warm water cascaded onto his shoulder, irritating his wound. Still, it was a pain well worth it as it washed away the dirt, sweat and grime of the last two days spent in the jungle. Had the water not ebbed into a trickle after about ten minutes, he would have spent twice as much time underneath it.

From the cupboard outside he pulled out a sweater and jeans. Alex was right, the legs on the jeans were slightly too short and he suspected the sleeves on the sweater would be too once he put it on. In that case, he'd simply roll them up.

He didn't bother putting on the sweater, knowing Alex would ask him to take it off again in order to bandage his shoulder.

"Feel better?" she asked after he sat down next to her on the banquette. Robin was still asleep across from them.

"Like a new man."

She redid the dressing on his shoulder in silence, breaking it only to apologize when he winced.

"Sorry."

"Tell me…is Anna going to be okay?"

She stopped what she was doing, raising her eyes in his direction, "I don't know."

"But you're a doctor…"

"I have no means of gauging whether she has any internal injuries."

"But if we make it through customs…"

"Once we're safe in Europe, I can run some tests, yes," she said, interrupting him. "And I will." She sounded annoyed now.

"Is there something you're not telling me?"

"Look…" Alex put down the bandages she held in her hand. "When I first met Anna she was very ill. She was living in a remote area in Canada. She had fevers and seizures as a result of not monitoring the cranial injuries she sustained from that explosion all those years ago. She desperately needed surgery. It's an understatement for me to say that having Anna lose consciousness and fall down jungle ravines, is _not_ a good idea for her."

Across from them, Robin stirred in her sleep, her body responding to the rise in Alex's voice.

An uncomfortable warmth flooded Robert's throat. "I didn't know…she didn't tell me…"

"Of course she didn't," Alex finished for him. She stood up and looked at him. "I cleaned up her face as best as I could, so hopefully she won't attract too much attention going through customs looking the way she is, and I gave her something for her headache that will probably knock her out for the rest of the flight. Why don't you join her? You could use some rest too. I can give you something as well. Your shoulder must be killing you."

There was something about her glance that got under his skin.

"Since… I've met you, you look at me like it's my fault she's hurt."

Alex calmly pushed a strand of hair behind her ears, "You can't blame me for being suspicious of you. You disappear for over a decade and the moment you re-appear, my sister is hurt and on the run from the law."

"I had amnesia!"

Alex put a finger on her lips and pointed to Robin. "So you say."

"You think I'm ly…." Robert raised his brows in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding."

"I don't mean to be unfair to you, Robert," she said softly. "But there have been a lot of people in my life who weren't what they seemed. It's made me cautious. But I'm also not an idiot…I know Anna is quite capable of getting herself into this kind of trouble all on her own. But that doesn't mean I'm not sceptical as far a you're concerned."

"You're wrong..." he started but she cut him off.

"If that's the case, you've got time to prove it." She offered him her second smile of the day, "I thought you'd appreciate an honest response. From what I've heard about you, you like your truth straight up."

"Fair enough," he conceded. Normally, he didn't care what others thought. But this was different. This was Anna's twin. She'd saved their lives this evening. And, in spite of her hostility, he liked her. An unapologetic bluntness was something he could relate to. Knowing that, he also knew it was futile to try and argue his case just then. It was too soon. Like him, she probably thought actions spoke louder than words. "I will take you up on your offer and join Anna," was all he said. Alexandra Marick would have to warm up to him another day.

Alex nodded, "Please do. I'll wake you before we arrive."

He walked to the rear of the plane, glad that, like the washroom, the room at the rear was separated from the rest of the cabin with a door. One that would shut out Alex' scrutiny for the next few hours.

The room was sparsely furnished, emphasizing practicality over luxury. Its deep brown and blue colours gave it a masculine feel. The double bed was draped with thick, navy bedspread and Robert saw Anna lying on her side, on top of it. One arm was stretched out under her head, the other hung limp over her side.

Robert laid down beside her, draping his arm over hers, so that it rested on her stomach and he could feel the rise and fall of her breath.

"Robert?"

"Yeah, it's just me. Go back to sleep."

"She's amazing, isn't she?" Anna mumbled sleepily. "My sister."

"Alex? Yeah, sure…amazing." He kissed the back of her head. Her hair was moist and it felt soft and clean against his lips. Funny, how quickly you were stripped of your dignity, by a simple lack of soap and water. "How are you feeling?"

"Better."

She had grabbed a hold of his hand. "Robert…"

"Hmm…?"

"Promise me something."

"Sure."

"Don't ever leave again."

The words tightened his throat. He kissed her again, knowing now why he hadn't been able to sleep in the plane's cabin. Knowing it was because Anna hadn't been next to him. "No. Never."

She was quiet again, and when his arm felt her breathing slow, he assumed she'd fallen back asleep.

That knowledge relaxed him and within seconds he too was asleep.

_Medellin, Colombia_

_She was stumbling through the jungle when she accidentally stepped on his body._

_The body was covered in blood. His face. Arms. Torso. Legs. All of it was draped in a thin red layer._

_She recoiled, raising her hands to her mouth, ready to scream. Yet no sound came out._

_How could she have stepped on him? What kind of person stepped on a dead man's body?_

_She turned her eyes downward to look at him and then the unthinkable happened._

_Luis Rigato opened his eyes. Blood poured from them. Thick, red tears._

_"How could you kill me? I'm an officer! Like you!"_

_Blood drooled from his mouth._

_She wanted to run but couldn't. Her legs were paralysed. As heavy as two pillars of cement._

_"How could you kill me, Valencia?"_

_"I didn't…"_

_She was mouthing the words but there was still no sound._

_If only the blood would stop dripping from his mouth_

_"You murdered me in cold blood!"_

"No es verdad!"

This time she did scream. Loud enough for the sound of her own voice to wake her.

"Val?" Mac's hazy face drifted into focus in front of her. "Are you okay?"

"Si…" She nodded shakily. "Si…Yes. I am okay." She noticed too that her hands were on her face and that her cheeks were wet. Valencia looked around the room, suddenly recognizing the familiar features of her office. They hadn't been here long. After the helicopter ride from Payita, a police jet had been ready for them in Yaviza and brought them back to Medellin.

Now they were waiting for the Commissioner to arrive.

He wanted to question them personally, but no one seemed to know exactly when he was coming. Valencia suspected that was part of the plan. To unhinge them by making them wait.

They weren't under arrest, yet it was clear they couldn't leave the station until the Commissioner arrived. To make sure of it, an officer sat in her office. He was not a guard they were told. He was assigned to them for their own safety.

"I had a dream…" she told Mac, glad that he was here. "I saw Rigato's body in the jungle."

She noticed that Mac's hand rested on her arm. He didn't seem to care that the officer was watching their every gesture.

"This is ridiculous," he said through clenched lips. Irritation reddened his pale cheeks. "We're both exhausted. Neither of us is under arrest. Why are we staying here, falling asleep in your office?"

"Mac, it's fine…I am okay," she repeated. She wiped the tears from her face and gave him a lop-sided smile. "I never liked Rigato but I didn't want him dead."

"You didn't kill him," Mac reminded her.

"I know."

"Good." A smile lifted his lips.

"But you're right," she said with a frown, "Why are we being held here? You should be in a hospital having someone look at your wound…" She glared at the officer in the room. He undoubtedly spoke English. "The wound Rigato gave him!"

"I'm fine, Val," he said softly. His eyes let her know this wasn't worth the effort. "We said we'd do whatever it takes to co-operate with this investigation."

"_You_ said that," she corrected him. Now that the memory of the nightmare was wearing off, a renewed anger filled her. "Not me. I'm not willing to let you drop dead, so Rigato can finish off what he tried to start…"

"We'll wait for the Commissioner," Mac insisted, his tone of voice suddenly reminding her of another uncompromising Australian.

"Fine," she conceded. "But if your face start to looks any more white than it is now, then I am refusing to say anything until they take you to a hospital."

"Deal," Mac replied, gingerly sitting down in the chair next to her. "While we wait, why don't you call your son, I bet he'd love to hear from you."

Valencia nodded. Hearing Daniel's voice was exactly what she needed and somehow she wasn't surprised that Mac knew. There were moments, like now, when it felt as though they'd always known each other. That it made sense that Mac would be in the same room as her when she woke up. She could tell him her fears; she could worry about him, and then she could stand her ground and argue, because, Mac, well, Mac could handle her. It all felt oddly…natural.

Valencia's cheeks flushed red and she brushed the thoughts from her mind.

_He's going to leave as soon as this mess is over. He has a life halfway across the world. You have a life here. That's what's natural._

"Well?" Mac had grabbed the cordless phone from her desk with a grin, ignoring the stare from the officer who sat in the room. "What's the number?"

_Above the Atlantic Ocean_

When Robert woke up it took him a moment to remember where he was. Like the previous night when he'd woken up in Payita, his first thought wasn't the present, but the past.

Seeing Anna next to him, still fast asleep, brought his memories back again. He saw glimpses of that beach in Italy. The wedding that followed afterwards. Robin standing in his living room.

He let the memories linger, grateful that they were there, afraid of the possibility that one day they might not be. He'd do this every morning, he decided. He'd remember these moments and savour them, recalling every detail of every memory. And in the end they'd be so firmly entrenched in his mind that it would be impossible to ever lose them again.

The plane. Hungary. Alex.

Seeing Anna lying asleep next to him propelled him back into the present.

The steady hum of the jet engines was telling him they were still in the air.

_Alex said she'd wake me when we got close, does this mean we're still a long way away?_

He got up and put on Dimitri's sweater, cringing at the effort it took to move his shoulder.

He opened the bedroom door and heard Alex and Robin talking to each other outside.

So engrossed were they in their conversation that neither of them saw him standing in the doorframe.

Robin's knees were pulled up against her body, the blanket still draped around them. She looked sleepy. Robert guessed she'd just woken up. Alex, sitting next to his daughter, on the other hand looked refreshed and alert. Her smoothly tailored skirt and blouse were crisp and unwrinkled; only her heels had been tossed underneath the banquette and she had folded her legs underneath her skirt in a small concession to comfort. Robert doubted she slept during the flight and now she was holding what looked like a prescription container in her hand.

"You shouldn't take these on an empty stomach," she chided Robin.

"I know…I usually don't, but it's been hard to keep track these last few days."

"Sweetheart, you know better than me to stay on top of your protocol schedule." Alex's voice sounded different when she spoke to Robin. It was like listening to a kinder, gentler person than the one he'd met earlier. "If you don't it could really mess up your condition…"

At those words, Robin spotted him standing in the doorway and her face paled.

Robert looked at his daughter, not understanding. "What condition, luv?"


	32. Chapter 32 and Epilogue

_Many thanks to ILovetoWriteSMP, R&AFan, Jennifer, Sarah, Sparky, StarryAquarius and YZX for taking the time to leave me your feedback! If you enjoyed this story and want more Scorpios and Maricks, I'll soon be posting an AMC/GH crossover fic, "Strangers" on the AMC board.  
-Roadrunnerz_

**Chapter XXXII **

_Paris, France_

_One week later_

Anna Devane sat at the dining room table of her apartment, cupping a hot mug of tea in her hands.

Robert was in the room with her, pacing.

He rubbed the back of his hand against his growing beard. "I don't have the patience for this," he growled.

"No kidding."

"A week, luv. It's been seven days and still no word from Mac and Valencia!"

"Robert, stop it." Anna set down her teacup. "You're making me want to jump out of my skin. We did get a phone call from him via Robin, remember? He said things were fine."

"What the hell does 'fine' mean? I need to know what's happening to them!" Robert exclaimed, sitting down across from her. "I know for a fact that there are phones in Colombia."

The last few days had been a challenge. For both of them.

Making it safely through customs in Hungary hadn't provided them with the relief they'd been expecting. Instead it was the beginning of a bumpy ride into a new life full of uncertainties.

Robert had taken the news of Robin's HIV status as hard as Anna knew he would, and it couldn't have come at a worse time. Just as they were about to land in Budapest, and needed to be calm and composed in order to go through customs, Robert had fallen apart.

That they made it through without incident had been part miracle, part luck.

Anna vaguely remembered waking up to the sound of voices arguing in the cabin of her sister's plane. Because whatever Alex had given her had made her feel sleepy, the voices weren't particularly clear in her memory. But she remembered enough of what was said that it could still make her feel uncomfortable now, a week later.

_"HIV? You're telling me my daughter has AIDS? What kind of a sick joke is this? Robin, tell me this isn't true..."_

_"Not AIDS, Dad. HIV. Big difference."_

_"HIV causes AIDS!" Robert had exclaimed. "Everyone knows that."_

_"HIV can cause AIDS, it doesn't have to."_

_"I don't understand…"_

_Anna had heard Robert's voice crack when she stepped into the cabin, her presence stopping the conversation dead. Alex flashed a concerned look in her direction._

_"I'm sorry…" It was the only thing Anna could think of to say. "I'm sorry, Robert. I should have told you."_

_But Robert had ignored her, transfixed by his daughter._

_"I don't believe you…" He hadn't been able to take his eyes off Robin. "You don't look sick."_

_"Dad, I'm not sick."_

_"But you're HIV positive?"_

_"I'm HIV positive, yes."_

_"Which causes AIDS."_

_"Dad, the chances of it turning into AIDS are really slim in my case…"_

But Robert hadn't understood then and Anna wasn't sure whether he truly understood now.

Last night, when they'd both been wide awake and restless at three in the morning, he asked her the same question that ran through her mind all the time.

_"She said she caught it from her first boyfriend. Do you ever think that maybe if we'd been around, that…"_

_He didn't need to finish._

_"All the time."_

_"How do you stand it?"_

_"I try to… remind myself that I can't change the past."_

_"But how do you stand knowing that our girl has a ticking time bomb in her body and there's nothing we can do? Not a single damn thing? How do you live with that?"_

_"It's not as though we're powerless. We can be there for her now. We can love her. We can make sure she takes care of herself."_

_"We can do all that and at the end of the day she's still HIV positive!"_

_His words had made her cry, and Robert, though he couldn't have seen her tears in the dark, was still Robert. He'd told her he was sorry. Sorry for his anger and frustration. Sorry for his absence. Sorry that he couldn't remember sooner. He was so damn sorry for everything…_

_And when she had angrily told him to stop, he silently wrapped his arms around her until she fell back asleep._

It was one of many arguments.

Afraid of being recognized, Robert rarely left the apartment. Even though he now sported a growing beard, he didn't want to risk walking through the streets of Paris while his disappearance was still headline news in South America. He went so far as to insist that Anna do the same.

_"Our faces are still plastered across every newspaper in Colombia," he had reminded her. "We should lay low for at least a couple of weeks, until the casual reader's forgotten what we look like."_

_"No one here is covering this story," Anna had protested. "Any Colombian visiting Paris will be too busy looking at the sights to notice two strangers walking down the street!"_

_"It's too much of a risk."_

Maybe Robert had been right, maybe it was a risk, but after three days of being locked up in her apartment, two of which Alex had insisted she spend in bed, Anna had tied her hair in a ponytail, put on a baseball cap and sunglasses and left to walk to the grocery store, leaving Robert behind to pace by himself.

A little risk was worth her sanity.

Of course he'd lectured her when she'd returned, and on top of it Anna had to admit the short walk had exhausted more than she thought it possibly could. Still, it was worth it for the half hour of fresh air she got and the unmistakeable look of relief on Robert's face as soon as she walked back through the door.

Ironically, there were moments when Robert's resolve to be careful took a complete turn and instead of hiding, he began insisting on turning himself in. Those moments caused the worst arguments; sometimes making Anna think they didn't stand a second chance after all.

_"I need to go back to Colombia and face the charges against me," he'd announced after one evening of spending an inordinate amount of time staring out the window._

_Anna had bit her lip, knowing what was next. "Don't start that again…"_

_"I promised Valencia. I promised myself," he had reminded her. "I spent nearly a decade working to end corruption in my police force, and then I desert it by helping an inmate break out of prison to go on the run with her?"_

_"If you go back and surrender yourself, then it means I go to prison too. Once they know who you really are, they'll know who I am…" Anna had shuddered at the thought of another night at La Catedral. She was certain if she entered that prison a second time she wouldn't come out alive again._

_"Not if I go back and testify as Roberto Sandoval…"_

_"Do you think for one moment that I would let you go to prison for something that I did?"_

_"Robin needs you."_

_"Robin needs you too, damn it!"_

_She had seen the conflict written all over his face. Nothing brought it on faster than a mention of Robin. Anna might have resisted using her daughter as leverage before Robert knew who she was, but she wouldn't hesitate to do it now in order to bring him to his senses._

_"You're asking me to turn my back on everything I believed in and stood for during the last ten years. If I lose those principles…what's left of me?"_

_"If you spend the rest of your life in jail cell, what's left of you then? What good can you do there? Helping me break free because you wanted to see your daughter doesn't make you a criminal, Robert, and I'm not asking you to become one. I might not have always understood your inability to see the world in anything but shades of black and white, but I know your integrity, is what makes you who you are. I love you for it."_

_"Then you do understand…"_

_"Oh no…I don't! What I understand is that you have a choice to make…between your ethics and your family. This time I'm asking you to choose your family."_

_He didn't have an answer for her then. Choosing instead to avert her gaze and keep staring out the window._

_"I don't want to hurt you, Anna. I love you too much for that," he'd admitted, without looking at her. "But I don't know if I can do what you're asking me to do. I committed a crime and left an entire police force believing I was a fraud."_

_"Roberto Sandoval broke me out of jail. Not you."_

_"I am Roberto Sandoval."_

_"No, you were always Robert Scorpio, living under a false identity because you couldn't remember your own."_

_He had turned back to face her. "Are we arguing legalities now, Anna?"_

_"No, not legalities. Facts. The fact is the police are looking for Roberto Sandoval and Filomena Soltini, two people who no longer exist."_

_"How convenient," he had snickered._

_"You promised me you wouldn't leave again."_

_"You know I meant it. I can't live without you."_

_"Then don't go back and face your charges. Please, I'm begging you…"_

That was one argument she hadn't won or lost yet, and even now, one week later. Robert still debated surrendering himself to the Medellin Police, just as Anna thought he had given up on the notion.

Compounding their stress and irritation, was that their injuries weren't healing nearly as fast as they'd have liked.

Alex had been right when she suspected that Robert's shoulder wound was infected. As a result Robert had spent the first few days in Paris in a feverish haze, in more discomfort than he was letting on. Even now, he couldn't manoeuvre his arm well enough to do certain simple things, like put on a shirt, and whenever Anna changed the dressing on his shoulder, she winced when she saw the ghastly colours swirling around the entry wound.

The bruising on her face had healed enough so that she no longer cringed each time she caught her reflection in a mirror. Not as quick to fade was the lingering headache she couldn't quite shake, one that seemed to lessen and worsen depending on the state of her mood. And when she got up too fast, everything still had a habit of spinning around her. Robert had noticed as much and now had a habit of hovering around her whenever she did anything more strenuous than boil a pot of water.

One morning he had caught her holding on to her chair and forced her to sit back down. Of course the gesture had brought on yet another argument.

_"You have got to stop fussing over me if you don't want me to lose my mind!"_

_"Fussing? I'm not fussing, I'm just telling you to take it easy."_

_"Easy? I was getting up, Robert, not lifting weights!"_

_His look had been one of amusement rather than irritation, "Don't be so difficult, luv."_

_"I'm not being difficult," she had shot back, her hands squarely on her hips. When she then saw his smirk she'd given up and sighed._

_"What I am is …frustrated. I'm worried about Mac. I want to be able to walk out of my apartment and not worry about getting arrested. I want this damn headache to go away."_

_"Hey…" He'd massaged her shoulders, gently easing the tension out of them. "Didn't Alex say we needed to be patient? That it would take a few weeks to recover? Or what were her exact words…something about being damn lucky we weren't worse off?"_

_She'd given him a lopsided smile, "Do you think we're getting too old for this adventure stuff?"_

_He had laughed. "Speak for yourself."_

"What are you thinking?"

Robert finally stopped pacing and sat down at the table across from her, pouring himself a cup of tea from the kettle.

"I was thinking," Anna answered, her focus back in the present. "That we've been fighting too much since we got here."

"We're both on edge," he admitted. "Both of us have strong opinions. On top of it we're cranky because we're sore," he added. He ran the tip of his index finger along the rim of his cup, looking up, with a half-smile. "But we make up nicely."

Anna smiled back at him. "True."

He had a point. While they might have spent much of their time in Paris arguing, they spent as much time making up. Rediscovering each other.

"I love you."

Anna looked at him, not knowing what to say. He had a habit of doing that, of reminding her that no matter what they had to face, he was back in her life. Robert _was_ back. And he loved her, as much as he always had. In light of that, not much else mattered.

"I know." She met his gaze, enjoying how she felt when he looked at her the way he did now. "I'm kind of crazy about you too." It was true. With the exception her daughters, she couldn't think of anyone she'd ever loved as much as Robert. Lover, friend, soulmate, husband. He had walked through every path in life with her, and now she'd been given a second chance, to walk with him again.

Robert put down the half-empty cup and stood back up, staring at the phone that hung on the wall.

Anna caught him as he moved towards it, deftly hooking two fingers into the belt of his jeans. "You're not going to start pacing again, are you?"

He sighed. Sometimes it seemed like he really did carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. "No, I was getting something from the fridge…"

Anna laughed. "Liar. You were going to stare down the phone and hope it would start ringing. Out of fear, maybe."

"Funny." His blue eyes smiled in response, "You think you know me so well."

"I do."

He grabbed the hand she'd used to catch him with, and moved it to his lips, kissing the inside of her wrist.

"Very smooth," she conceded, enjoying the feel of his lips against her skin.

Robert's hand raised her arm, his lips moving along, inside it, before coming to a stop at her shoulder.

It was warm in the apartment and all she wore was a tank top with two thin black straps, one of which Robert was now easing off her shoulder.

"I've missed this spot," he declared, kissing the soft flesh beneath her collarbone. "Even more than…" Now his lips moved downward, to the nape of her neck, "This one. But it's a tough call."

He was kneeling in front of her now, letting go of her arm to focus on lowering the second strap of her top.

It gave Anna's hands the chance to loosen the belt on his jeans.

She slid down onto floor, into his lap, laughing when he nearly lost his balance in the process.

One of his arms wrapped itself around her back, lowering her to the ground with an ease that reminded her of his physical strength. Robert may have been older than her, but he was in good shape, still a firm believer that a strong mind went hand in a hand with a strong body.

"Hold still," Anna whispered into his ear, as the buttons on his shirt slipped out of her fingers. Her breathing had quickened, excited at the prospect of discovering something else she may have forgotten. Whether it was the subtle curve of his lower back, the way his eyes changed colour and darkened when he narrowed them pleasure or how his lips knew her body with an intimacy that no other man ever had. Everything about him was at once new and thrilling. Familiar and comforting. It was an intoxicating combination.

His new beard tickled her stomach as his lips moved lower. Anna had wanted him to shave it, not because the stubble bothered her, but because the scar hiding beneath it fascinated her. She caught a glimpse of it when he did shave nearly four days ago and had been shocked at how much it now defined his face. It ran straight along his jaw line, from his chin to the top of his cheek.

_"It's not pretty, is it?"_

_"Do you know how you got it?"_

_"I had it when I first woke up…after the explosion. It was a souvenir from the Before. But how exactly I got is still a mystery to me. It's one thing I still can't remember…even now."_

_Even though she had seen it before when he'd first come to see her at La Catedral, Anna had been unable to stop staring at it._

_Her reaction made him turn away from the mirror._

_"I'm used to people staring at it, but I've never cared enough to do anything about…but if it bothers you, that's different. I can make inquiries with a plastic surgeon to see if…"_

_"No! Don't even think about it." Anna had stopped him in mid-sentence. She had cupped her hands on his chin, and forced him to look at her, "It's a part of you now. It's a reminder of what we had to go through…to be here." She had stood on tip-toes and kissed his scar. "If you think a line across your face changes anything, maybe you don't remember so much after all…"_

The first time they had made love, it had been a frantic affair. An urgent need to reclaim something neither of them imagined ever having again. It had left them weak and exhausted. But now, they were starting to slow down. Everything was gentler. Smoother. Better.

"Damn it," Anna cursed. "These are the most secure shirt buttons in all of Europe. Are you sure you didn't buy a straight jacket?"

Robert laughed and it lit up his face, his earlier stress fading from it.

"I could spend the rest of my life here, in your arms," she told him afterwards, content as her head rested on his chest, his shirt finally tossed aside on the floor in a messy heap.

His fingers played idly with her hair. "Works for me."

"Maybe on the bed instead of the floor though."

"But then we'd have to get up."

"True. Scratch that."

He was right, Anna thought sleepily as she watched the comforting rise and fall of his chest; they did make up nicely.

It was worth the fights.

_Paris, France_

_Outside Robin's Apartment_

"What if Robin is not at home?" Valencia Munoz asked him.

"I don't know," Mac shrugged. The thought hadn't occurred to him. "This is your first time in Paris, isn't it? There must be something you want to see…climb the Eiffel Tower? Walk along the Champs Elysees?"

"Estas loco!" Valencia laughed. "Roberto would kill you if he knows you are here, going up the Eiffel Tower, while he is waiting to hear from you."

Mac knocked on his niece's door again, louder this time, only to hear her impatient voice on the other side.

"Je viens!"

Both of them grinned when Robin opened the door in shock, holding her hands over her mouth to stop from screaming in delight.

She jumped up to hug Mac. "Mac! What are you doing here? Why didn't you call?"

Mac held her close, "I…_we _wanted to surprise you."

She rushed over to embrace Valencia, telling both of them to come inside. "I can't believe you're here and didn't tell me you're coming!" Robin was grinning from ear to ear. "Do Mom and Dad know?"

"We wanted to see you first," Mac told her.

"What about your wound?"

"It's fine," Mac assured her. "In fact, I had Monica have a look at it in Port Charles and she said that in about a week you'll barely see any trace of it. It nicked me, that's all."

"That's fantastic news," Robin told him. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you." She gestured to her loveseat. "Both of you, sit down…let me get you something to drink and tell me everything that happened after we left Payita."

"There isn't much to tell from our end," Mac admitted, sitting down while Robin dashed into the kitchen. "Everything went pretty much according to plan. Mind you, the story we sold them wasn't all that far from the truth, all we did was leave out the parts that had your parents in it."

"They bought that you were working on a mission in Central America and hired Valencia to help you out?"

"That part was trickier," Mac pointed out. "You could say I got an earful after the Medellin Police contacted the PCPD and my next-in-command ended up contacting the State governor, because, although he backed me up at the time, he of course had no clue about this supposed mission. The governor threatened to relieve me of my duties for causing, what was it he called it," He turned to Valencia. "A diplomatic incident?"

"Oh no…" Robin frowned as she took a seat across from them. "Mac…did this cost you your job?"

Mac grinned. "Almost. But then the next day there was a Corinthos related mob shoot-out down by the pier and all of sudden my secret mission became a moot point next to the idea of having a police force without a Commissioner."

Robin's eyes widened and she chuckled. "Does this mean you owe Sonny?"

Mac was serious, "Actually, I went down there and spent an entire sleepless night trying to help clean up the mess. Two teenagers wounded, one critical, a drug dealer shot dead, blood and guns everywhere…and you know what? I realized I couldn't stand it anymore. All the senseless violence that never goes away. That no matter what you do or whom you manage to arrest, at the end of the day all you're doing is cutting off the head of a serpent that re-grows another one the next day. Either that or finds itself a smitten lawyer that gets it off the hook." He sighed. "I handed in my resignation the next day."

Robin gasped, "What?" She looked at him as though unsure of what to make of it all. "Mac…that's crazy."

"Wait until he tells you what he did next…" Valencia added.

"There's more?"

"I really missed Val," he said simply.

"So you called her?"

"No. I flew back to Medellin."

"You flew back to Colombia because you missed Valencia?" Robin's eyes widened further, understanding slowly dawning on her.

Mac laughed and looked at Val, "Is it me or do you hear an echo too?"

"I don't know what to say…" Robin started.

"It was crazy, I know," Mac admitted. "So much so that I almost turned back right after I landed. I'm not a very impulsive man anymore, Robin. I don't do things like that."

"I know!"

"But something happened in Colombia…"

Robin smirked. "You mean aside from Dad coming back from the dead and breaking Mom out of jail and all that."

Mac sighed. "Are you going to let me tell you what happened next?"

"Yes, go on!" Robin exclaimed. "I'm dying to know."

He stole another glance in Valencia's direction; "I thought she was going to laugh at me, when I showed up at her door with no warning."

"And?" Robin pressed.

"I didn't laugh," Valencia finished for Mac.

"What _did_ you do?"

"She, uh…" Mac felt himself blush. "No, she didn't laugh."

"Mac! Tell me what happened!" Robin turned to Valencia. "What did you do?"

Mac's eyes met Valencia's and he wondered how she would put that moment into words. How would she explain opening the door and finding him standing on her porch unannounced? How could she put into words what was written on her face in that moment? Was it possible to describe the look in her eyes that suddenly justified one of the craziest things he'd ever done and made him feel something he hadn't felt in a long, long time?

Valencia hadn't said anything at all then.

What she did do was wrap her arms around him and kiss him.

He remembered it well, that kiss. Like much about Valencia, it was warm and beautiful and it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

"What do you think?" Valencia asked Robin, while her eyes sheepishly met Mac's. "I asked your uncle to come inside."

Robin eyed them both, exasperated. "And then?"

"I met Val's mother, and her son, Daniel. You should see him, Robin. He's amazing. So smart. " Mac laughed, "He's even taught me some Spanish."

"So you didn't think my uncle was crazy?" Robin's grin was huge when she looked at Valencia, and it made Mac smile to think that she might like the prospect of having Val in his life as much as he did.

"Well, yes," Valencia told her, "He is crazy. But I'm happy he came. I missed him too."

"I stayed for three days," Mac continued. "And, it was…nice. _Really_ nice."

It was more than that, he thought, thinking back now. It had given him a chance to get to know Valencia, away from the madness of the week before. Not just Valencia the cop with nerves of steel, but Valencia the mother and the woman. And after three days he liked her even more than he did before. Being near her made him realize that while he might have flown to Medellin on a whim, he was staying on because of something much deeper. Something too precious to let slip away.

She had told him that she too had resigned from the Medellin Police because Juan Dominguez had been relentless in trying to find out the truth behind her leave of absence. Dominguez knew there was more to it than she had admitted. Because Valencia knew him well enough to know he wouldn't stop until he found something to incriminate her, she decided the risk wasn't worth it.

Both of them were looking at uncertain futures, but neither of them wanted to taint their time together with talks of it. They spent three glorious, hot evenings talking about everything but and Mac now knew that no matter what his future held, he wanted Valencia and her family in it. He hadn't yet figured out how, but he had no doubts he would find a way.

Robin looked at him in astonished amusemen. "You spent three days visiting Val in Medellin while Mom and Dad were going out of their mind worrying about you?"

"I told him to call you again," Valencia told her.

"I needed time away from everything," Mac explained. "I really needed it. I didn't tell anyone where I was, not Georgie, not Maxie. No one. I figured for three days everyone would have to find a way sort out whatever problems came their way on their own." Then Mac's lips lifted in amusement."Besides, after all they grey hairs they've given me, the girls owed me one. So does Robbie and your Mom."

"You're right. They do." Robin smiled, in agreeement. "But they'll still kill you. Now I get why I you came to see me first." She set down the glass of water she was holding and got up to hug him again, "Oh Mac…I don't know what to say. It's crazy and I can't believe you're not Commissioner anymore but at the same time I'm really, really happy for you."

She turned to Valencia with a huge smile. "I have a feeling my uncle's a lucky guy too."

"Tell me, how _are_ your parents doing?" Mac asked Robin.

Robin's expression changed along with his, serious now. "They're okay I think. They're restless and impatient, like tigers in a cage. Still recovering, even though they don't like to admit it. Alex tried to get them to check into a hospital in Hungary…but," Robin shrugged. "You know how stubborn they are. Mom refused, insisting on flying back to Paris two days after we got to Vadsel."

"Of course."

"Dad didn't take the news of my HIV too well," Robin told him. "He found out by accident on the flight to Europe."

Mac cringed. "Oh no…"

"He didn't know how to handle it," Robin admitted. "He was convinced it was a death sentence and even though I tried to explain…well, it didn't go too well. Dad likes to fix things. The notion that he can't fix this doesn't sit well with him."

Mac eyed her knowing exactly how his brother must have felt. How gut-wrenchingly helpless he himself had felt all those years ago when Robin had told him the same news. How he would have given anything in the world to trade places with her.

"In the end it was Alex who calmed him down," Robin went on, with a lop-sided smile. "Gave him the cold, hard, scientific facts, and told him if he didn't get a grip she'd hand him a parachute and open the cabin door."

"Wow." Mac chuckled, "Tough love."

"I know…" Robin grimaced at the recollection. "But truthfully, I think it's what he needed. Mom and I were worried that Dad was so upset it would make him a mess at customs. But he was cool. Made it through with no problems, in spite of his borrowed Hungarian passport." Robin pushed a strand of hair behind her ears, "They're amazing when it comes to that. Of pulling themselves together when it counts. They did the same after that shoot-out in Payita. I guess that's what makes them pros at this."

"You were amazing in all this too," Mac added. "You're the one who arranged the whole rescue."

Robin shrugged her shoulders, "I just had an idea and we were lucky that it happened to work out."

"Oh, it was more than that. It was a brilliant move, sweetheart," Mac said with pride. "I'm convinced you got your brains from my part of the gene pool."

Robin laughed. "Alex tells me I get it from hers. Either way Mom and Dad aren't getting a lot of credit."

"Should they?" Mac set down his cup, still grinning. "Speaking of your parents. You think we should go and pay them a visit?"

_Anna's Apartment_

"Let me help you," Anna offered, after he picked up his shirt from the floor and tried to slip back into it, even though his shoulder protested.

"I'm going to have to dress myself at some point," he sighed.

"I took it off," she teased. "It's only fair I put it back on."

The were sitting on the bed in the bedroom now, where they'd moved to when Robert saw that Anna was on the verge of falling asleep.

It was the one thing they had in abundance right now; time. Time for dozing off in the middle of the afternoon.

"Why don't you stay here?" Robert suggested. Anna needed the rest. More than he did. "I'll make dinner tonight. That way we'll actually be able to eat it."

Anna stopped buttoning his shirt and poked him in the chest. "Just for that you can dress yourself "

She sank back down onto the pillow, making him grin. He loved the dreamy look she had after waking up. The way the loose strands of her long hair fell messily over her face. It was one of the few times she seemed vulnerable rather than invincible.

He soaked in the sight of her, grateful that she'd managed to make him stop worrying about his little brother for a good chunk of the afternoon. Robert knew he still had a habit of letting his glances linger for too long. Of wanting to savour certain images for fear that he might forget them again.

He bent down to kiss her forehead, "Truth hurts, luv, doesn't it?"

He got up, leaving his shirt half unbuttoned, surprised to hear a loud knock on the door.

Anna yawned and made no move to follow him. "Robin?" she asked. "She didn't say she'd stop by tonight, did she?"

Robert frowned, "She didn't."

Knocks on the door made him uneasy these days and almost instantly a knot tightened in his stomach. For all he knew it was Interpol on the other side, ready to drag him back to Colombia in handcuffs. "Stay here, luv. I'll get it."

His heart pounded when he moved to answer it. Whoever it was, Robert took solace knowing that he had spent this afternoon making love to Anna. He'd made one more beautiful new memory, no matter what happened next.

'At least I didn't instigate another damn argument,' he thought ruefully, making a mental note to stop fighting Anna so much. Would it kill him to let her have her way now and then?

The pounding in his heart magnified as he pulled open the door.

"Surprise!"

Robert's eyes nearly fell out of his head.

It wasn't Interpol standing outside Anna's apartment door. It was his daughter, along with his brother and Valencia Munoz.

"Mac?" he stepped forward to pull his brother into a hug, flooded with relief. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too, Robbie," Mac answered with a grin.

Robert let go of him and stared at Valencia. As happy as he was to see her, he suddenly realized what her presence implied. "Val…"

"Hello, Commissioner," her grin was as big as Mac's. "It's good to see you again."

"Robert…" The commotion had drawn Anna into the living room. She spotted her daughter first, "Robin…what's going on?" Then she saw Mac, making her shriek with delight. "Oh my god… Mac!"

Like Robert before her, she ran up to embrace him. She brushed her hair out of her face, her eyes moist, laughing. "Geez Mac…we're a mess. Why didn't you let us know…" She hit him in the chest, "You've heard of phones, yes?"

Mac laughed, "Where's the surprise in that?"

Anna moved to hug Valencia, "I can't believe you're both here…just like that."

Robert put an arm around Robin's shoulder, the knot in his stomach still tight. "Tell us what's happening. We've been going mad wondering about you two."

"Hey, I did call Robin to tell her…" Mac protested.

"To tell her you're fine!" Robert waved his hands into the hair. "What the hell does 'fine' mean?"

His brother grinned, "It means exactly that."

"What about your gunshot wound?"

"That's fine too. You're the one who actually got shot, Robbie, how are you and Anna doing?"

"I'll live. And I'll make sure Anna does as well. Sit down," Robert gestured to one of the chairs around their dining table. "Tell us everything."

"I'll go make some coffee," Anna told them.

"Don't bother," Mac told her, reaching for her shoulder. "We're going out for a celebratory dinner." His grin spread, "Robbie's treating. He offered after that shoot out in Payita. You thought I'd forget that, didn't you?"

"First tell me what's going on!" Robert demanded.

"Over dinner," Mac insisted. "It's Paris. We're not going to sit here and have brewed coffee or worse," he glanced at Anna. "…have your wife cook for us."

"Thanks," Anna mumbled.

"I am starving," Robin agreed. "Have you gone out for dinner even once since you got here, Dad?"

Robert looked at all of them in disbelief. His brother was acting as though dropping in for an evening visit was the most natural thing in the world. Like he hadn't just spent a week frantically worried over how Mac had handled the Medellin Police after killing one of its officers. Like he wasn't still on Colombia's number one most wanted list, along with a slew of drug barons. "I can't just…go out for dinner! Anna and I wanted for a list of charges as long as our arms!"

Valencia looked at him, puzzled, "Roberto Sandoval and Filomena Solitini are wanted by the police, not you and Anna. And they are wanted in Colombia, not in France."

"I already tried to explain this to him," Anna snickered.

"But you…" Robert finally worked up the nerve to look Valencia in the eyes. "You're here to take me back, aren't you?"

"What?" Valencia looked at him as though she had no idea what he was talking about.

"What I said in the Barrio, about facing the charges, I meant it…" Robert said softly. Now it was Anna he couldn't bring himself to look at. "If you're here to take me back to Colombia, I'll go freely."

Valencia's eyes widened, "You think I am here to arrest you? Have you lost your mind?"

"I made a promise to you in the Barrio."

"You had just been shot. I was not going to argue with you."

"I won't take the cowardly way out of this…"

"Dad, what are you talking about?" Robin demanded.

"You are not going back to Colombia, Roberto!" Valencia's hands were on her hips now. Adamant. "You going to prison is not going to accomplish anything for anyone."

Robert bit his lip. As a Medellin officer, Val would surely understand that which Anna couldn't. "For ten years I fought against corruption in the force, Val. Ten years!"

"Exactly," she shot back. "You gave ten years of your life to Medellin and you did something no other Commissioner before you could do. You showed us a different way of doing things. You showed us that it was possible to be a cop with integrity. You don't owe us anything, Roberto. We owe you a chance to have a life with your family now."

Robert didn't know what to say. It was the last thing he expected to hear. Yet hearing her say it made him realize how much he needed to hear it.

"Believe me, Roberto," she said softly. "I am the last person who would arrest you and take you back to Colombia. You deserve your happiness. More than anyone else I know."

Maybe she was right. Maybe for once it wasn't about doing the right thing, but doing what made his life worth living.

Silence hung in the room now, and even Mac's grin had faded.

It was Anna who spoke first.

"Look, if you…if you have to go back and face your charges, because you won't be able to face yourself if you don't, then I won't stop you. I don't have that right." Her eyes were suddenly moist. "If you have to do it, I'll even try to understand."

"I don't understand…" Robin's voice came out of nowhere. "What are you talking about, Dad? You want to go to Colombia and face charges, for breaking Mom out of jail? They're going to put you prison!"

If Anna's insistence and Valencia's approval weren't enough to cement his decision, the disbelieving look on his daughter's face was all the convincing he needed. He had already lost so many years, how in the world could he not do everything in his power to make sure he wouldn't lose any more? "I'm not…" he said softly. "I'm not leaving you or your mom again. I'll do whatever it takes."

Valencia smiled. "Good decision, boss."

Robert gave her a mock salute, "Not anymore, Officer Munoz." He saw Anna wipe her eyes with the back of her hand, as she gave him a lopsided smile. He put his arm around her shoulders and winked at Valencia. "In other words, it's perfectly fine for me to take you out for dinner."

Robin's look of relief mirrored her mother's.

"Well, then what are we waiting for? There's lots I need to tell you and even more that I want to know," Mac told them.

"I want to go up the Eiffel Tower after dinner," Valencia informed Mac, taking his hand in hers, much to Robert's surprise.

"You think those two…?" he whispered to Anna, after his brother had turned around, heading for the door.

"Yeah I think so," she whispered back. She was putting her hair up in a clip, in a hurried effort to make it look neater, and gave him a nudge towards the door, grabbing Robin's hand at the same time, winking to her. "He did say he has lots to tell us, didn't he?"

**_Epilogue _**

_Paris, France_

_One month later_

She spotted the fish from the corner of her eye.

It swam against the murky currents of the Seine, completely oblivious to the danger that was about to swoop down on him.

Anna grimaced, knowing what would happen next. The grey bird that flew above the river, and spotted the fish long before her, suddenly nose-dived into the water and yanked it out in one cleverly timed movement.

She watched the bird fly back up from the water's edge, as fast as it had descended. The fish squirmed inside its beak now.

'That's how quickly your life can change,' Anna realized. 'In seconds.'

She closed her eyes and fell back into time.

An elevator crashed with her inside it. An unborn child gone forever.

A man she loved coming to tell her good-bye. To die in her arms.

An explosion on a tanker. A world set on fire. A world forgotten. In seconds.

A newborn baby girl whose heart was too weak to keep beating.

Leora.

Anna opened her eyes again, blinking as they filled with tears.

Then she heard a splash and, even though it was much higher in the sky, she could still see the grey bird. She saw that its beak was empty now. The fish had squirmed its way out of it and fallen back into the river.

Anna leaned forward against the iron railing, raising the corner of her lips into a smile when she saw the fish come up to the surface of the water again. Swimming against the current once more as if it hadn't nearly been dinner.

Sometimes, in spite of everything, you got a second chance.

"Hey, luv."

Anna gasped. Robert had appeared out of nowhere. Wrapping his arms around her.

Even after all this time, he was still the only one who could sneak up on her like that. Staring out into the river had nearly made her forget that she was supposed to meet him here, after her final check up with Alex, which her persistent sister had specifically flown to Paris for.

Anna smiled, enjoying the warmth of his arms around her.

He eyed her, his lips creasing into a frown when he took a closer look at her. "Hey…what's wrong?"

Anna wiped the tears from her eyes. "It's nothing."

He his arms tightened around her and he waited until she was ready to tell him.

"I was thinking about Leora," she said softly, after pausing long enough until she could say it without being threatened by more tears. "I miss her so much sometimes. I know we didn't have a long time together, but I loved her as much as I love Robin. She was my miracle."

Robert kissed her cheek. "I'm sorry, luv. I'm so sorry she never had the chance to grow up. To be loved by you. And I'm so sorry I never had the chance to meet her."

Anna nodded. She wasn't used to sharing her grief anymore. She hadn't wanted to burden Robin with it and David hadn't been able to deal with his own grief, much less hers. It wasn't until now that it dawned on her that she did need someone. Someone she could share her loss with. Someone who was as strong as she was.

Anna kept staring out into the river.

It was getting dark and cold now, a reminder that winter had arrived, stealing a little more daylight every evening, but Robert made no move to leave. Instead, he too stood against the iron railing, propping his elbows against it and stared out into the distance with her.

"I decided to deliver Spencer Gooding's mask to Colombia because I needed to feel something again, after feeling empty for so long," she confessed, leaning against him. "I thought maybe if I risked my life, I'd feel alive again."

"You just lost your daughter," he finished for her. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost Robin. But I think it might be something worse than smuggling a stolen mask halfway around the world."

"I'm not making excuses…"

"You don't have to explain."

Anna stopped staring into the increasing darkness and turned to look at Robert. His beard was fuller now. It changed his face but eyes his eyes were the same, and now they were focused on her.

"This is going to sound crazy but sometimes I think that Leora…" Her voice broke.

"That she…brought you to me," Robert finished for her.

Anna looked at him in surprise. It was the last thing she expected him to say. Robert didn't believe in things like that. Robert was like Alex, he believed in facts and proof.

"You think it's coincidence that you ended up at La Catedral in Medellin of all places? That the interpreter just happened to be unable to translate for you that day?" he pointed out. "That's too much of a leap of faith for me, luv."

Anna nodded, unable to say anything else. The notion that her little girl might have led the way to Robert was overwhelming.

One miracle lost.

Another miracle found.

_Was it really possible?_

Anna shivered in the cold.

"I wish," Robert said softly. "That I could have seen her and known her."

Anna smiled. "She was beautiful."

"I bet she was." His hand reached over to cover hers, fingers entwining with fingers.

"It's getting cold, luv." He gently led her away from the railing.

Anna didn't resist. She didn't want to talk about Leora anymore. While she was grateful that she could, it still wasn't easy.

Robert sensed as much and he deftly changed the subject.

"How was the check-up with Alex?"

"Good. Clean bill of health," she told him. "Although she did suggest I wear a helmet for the rest of my life."

Robert chuckled. "I like your sister."

"You can tell her that over dinner tonight."

"I will."

They kept walking in the chilly evening air. Robert was no longer afraid of being recognized and it felt good to stroll through the streets of Paris with him.

Walking along the storefronts, Anna spotted a jade figurine in a shop window and nudged Robert towards it.

It was Chinese dragon. More than the intricate design, what caught Anna's eye was the obvious quality of the stone. It had a smooth, polished surface and a striking blend of emerald greens with occasional streaks of blue. It was something rare and beautiful and she noticed it even at a distance, through the glass window. It beckoned to her.

The store's door was open and raised her eyebrows, excited at the prospect of holding the figurine in her hands. "Let's take a look inside…"

Robert stopped dead in his tracks, looked at her, then started laughing, "I don't think that's a good idea, sweetheart."

"Robert, did you see the dragon? It's incredible!"

His arm was around her waist now, leading her away from the shop window. "Do you remember what happened the last time you walked into an antique shop?"

Anna let him lead her away, smiling back at him as she clasped her hand in his. "Maybe you're right. Just this once."

**The End **


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